


My Soul Shall Set In Darkness

by beamirang



Series: The Old Astronomer [2]
Category: Roswell New Mexico (TV 2019)
Genre: Alien Technology, Angst, Bickering, Captivity, Domestic Fluff, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Fluff, Government Conspiracy, Hurt/Comfort, Kidnapping, M/M, Military Cover Ups, Mind Control, Mind Control Aftermath & Recovery, Minor Character Death, Mystery, Past Child Abuse, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Science Bros, Soldiers, True Love
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-05-17
Updated: 2019-10-21
Packaged: 2020-03-06 14:48:08
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 23
Words: 45,917
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18853231
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/beamirang/pseuds/beamirang
Summary: Now Alex is running Project Shepherd, he's hopeful things will settle down and he'll finally get time to do all the overhyped romantic relationship stuff with Michael that they've both missed out on.But with Liz Ortecho back in town investigating her sister's death, an alien serial killer on the loose and a web of conspiracies reaching far further than anyone could anticipate, the chance of Alex and Micahel even living to see their wedding day grows slimmer by the hour.Sequel to The Old Astronomer.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I was planning on waiting until June to start posting - I'm about 35k into things so far - but after today's hiatus news, I figured why the hell not. 
> 
> I hope you enjoy the second part of this sort as we crash - quite literally - into chapter one!

Alex sinks his arms into warm, bubble-filled water and runs a cloth over the breakfast dishes. The radio is belting out an hour of nostalgic 90s pop, the door to the back porch is open, letting in the warm mid-morning breeze, and if he were any more content it’d be criminal.

He’s engaged. He’s engaged to Michael Guerin, and at some point, they’re going to be married. There’s a ring on his finger and an emblem of _family_ warm against his skin every day, and at night he gets to hold the man he loves in his arms. He gets to kiss the back of Michael’s neck and press cold toes to his calves and he gets to catalog the endless number of sounds Michael makes when Alex is close to him.

He gets to listen to the radio while Michael makes breakfast because Michael is a cook and Alex really isn’t. He gets to pick Michael’s socks off the back of the couch because he’s a neat freak and Micheal… really isn’t.

He gets all the things he’s never dreamed of getting, and he gets to be safe while doing them.

His father is out of the picture. Locked up in a dark space that doesn’t even have a dot on a map. He can never hurt Michael again, never threaten to expose him for what he is.

When Alex was a child, too young to understand the how’s and why’s of his father’s moods, he slowly started to develop a keen sense of observation. No, he might not understand why things would change, but he knew the second they did. He knew from the music his dad would play, or the length of time he went between showers. He knew from the amount of whiskey he’d pour into a glass and the shifts times he’d return home from. Alex became something of an expert at reading body language from a very young age, and he used it to make sure he stayed as far away from trouble as he could get.

Hyper-vigilance, learned from such a young age, isn’t something that’s easy to let go of. It’s an absolute riot when you’re sharing a small, intimate space with someone else who has learned exactly the same survival skills, but together, in this new, precious little bubble of safety they have crafted together, they are slowly helping each other undo their worst habits.

He’s always hated the idea that finding ‘your person’ is the same as developing from something incomplete to something whole. Michael doesn’t complete Alex in the sense of making up for something that’s missing, but he _does_ galvanize him. With Michael, Alex is everything he ever was and wants to be. He’s a safety net and an encouraging hand beckoning him to new heights, and Alex is going to marry him.

Which means he needs to up his fucking game. Michael has him beat on literally every romantic milestone in their relationship and _fuck that_. Alex is competitive - he’s got three older brothers - and he absolutely refuses to let Michael have the monopoly on grand gestures.

The problem he’s finding though is that while Alex might soak up those grand gestures Michael so effortlessly gives, Michael doesn’t respond as well to them. The way to his heart is less a bulldozer through walls of stubbornness and more the flutter of a hundred butterflies on the breeze. Michael likes the little things. He likes fresh sheets on the bed and the expensive coffee Alex buys. He likes being held and he likes having cold beer in the fridge and he likes the fact that they have Netflix. As someone who has never had a home he’s felt wanted or loved in, Michael goes gooey over the sight of their toothbrushes side by side.

It’s painfully endearing: Alex’s macho cowboy reduced to shimmering hazel eyes and a watery smile because Alex remembered to pick up his favorite candy at the store.

But pairing up Michael’s socks so he can actually find a matching pair in the morning feels a little limp when stacked against a marriage proposal.

Lost in the domesticity of washing dishes, Alex lets his mind wander. Michael’ll be back from town soon and they’re going to make the most of Alex’s day off work to decorate the cabin, and then maybe go to the movies. They can make out in the back like they never got the chance to do as kids.

It’s such an agonizingly sweet fairytale that Alex is going to start singing to the wildlife any damn second.

With the brief exception of his mission to rescue Micheal from a Project Shepard facility nearly a month ago, he hasn’t seen active combat in over half a year. He doesn’t necessarily consider that a bad thing - he’s sharing a very small cabin with Michael and they have enough combined trauma to fuel a soap opera even before they add Alex’s twitchy reflexes to the mix - but for all the quiet domesticity of his new life, Alex is probably far more likely to get murdered in Roswell than he ever was the Middle East.

Case in fucking point -

The small, wickedly sharp vegetable knife slips from his fingers into the opaque dishwater. Deciding he doesn’t want to slice a finger off just feeling around for it, Alex bends forwards to get a better look.

When he raises his head, the knife still below the surface of the water, he catches his reflection in the window above the sink.

The face over his left shoulder isn’t Michael.

His reflexes aren’t what they once were, but he’ll be damned if someone kills him while he’s doing the fucking dishes.

And however rusty his instincts might be, he doesn’t hesitate for a second before bringing the knife round in a tight circle and stabbing it into the forearm currently trying to inject him with a syringe.

The howl of pain that follows gives Alex a split second to take his attacker in.

He’s dressed in full black tactical BDUs, no rank or insignia, and short of the neon sign saying ‘shady assassin’ that hovers metaphorically over his masked head, there are no identifying marks of any kind.

A man in civvies trying to kill Alex might be there alone. This one is part of a team.

Great. That’s just fucking great.

Alex is going to have to start wandering around with a weapons holster over his damn sweatpants because his gun is sweet fuck all use to him right now. By the time he reaches it and loads it, he’ll have lost any upper hand he’s managed to snatch back.

Reaching behind him, Alex wraps his hand around the handle of the skillet Michael’d cooked breakfast in. It’s a gift from Isobel, one of her many overcompensated attempts to pay Alex back for saving Michael’s life, so it’s expensive as hell and heavy as fuck. He doesn’t aim it for his attacker’s head, not knowing how heavy duty his helmet is, and instead brings it down hard on his bleeding arm.

Bone breaks with a snap. Alex drops, letting his left leg take the full impact before swinging the skillet again. The kneepads his attacker is wearing are identical to ones Alex has worn himself in the past. They provide great protection for the front of the kneecap and give great shock absorption for doing the kind of painfully stupid move Alex has just done.

They do nothing to protect the insides of the knees. Breaking someone’s knee front on is a hell of a lot harder than it looks and the force involved has to be significant. Breaking someone’s knee from the side, however… significantly easier and a hell of a lot harder to fix. Alex flips the skillet in his hand, angling the heavy side of it downwards, and brings it down hard with a nauseating crack.

Only then does he slam it into the back of the guy’s neck.

There’s a rush of motion to his right and he brings the skillet back up before he’s even aware he’s doing it. It’s solid iron, so it is enough to deflect the bullet aimed at his head, but there’s zero chance of Alex maintaining his grip on the handle and the impact sends him back into the counter with enough force to rattle his brain.

The only way to avoid further shots is to put the first attack between him and this new threat, using his body as a shield. They’re still both on the floor, and Alex has zero maneuverability, which means he has one shot and one shot only.

The shooter rounds the kitchen table for a better angle, and Alex moves.

Decked out head to toe in Kevlar body armor, there’s really only one place you’re likely to find any kind of fatal vulnerability. Head on, face to face, there’s little to no chance of hitting it. But Alex is on one knee. He’s below, and he’s got the opening.

The knife, small and wickedly sharp, flies true and lands with a soft thud right at the junction between neck protector and helmet. He misses the esophagus by a fraction, but the damage is done and gloved hands reach on instinct to pull the knife free. The spray of blood hits Alex even from the other side of the kitchen. It’s not an instant kill, but it buys Alex time.

There are now two broken, flopping bodies on his kitchen floor, one rapidly bleeding to death and the other twitching, likely paralyzed.

Alex forces himself off his knees and grabs the discarded M9. The use of small arms, the syringe… this is is a specialized hit. The only question is: are they here for him, or Michael?

Michael’s going to be home any minute.

Alex propels himself forwards, painfully aware of how vulnerable he’s left himself as the front door to the cabin suddenly explodes inwards and a third hostile charges through the back door simultaneously.

If Alex is lucky, it’s a four-man team.

That’s the saying they have in Recon-9: it’s better to be lucky than good.

Once upon a time, Alex was good. Desk life and the loss of a limb have screwed with that, but even at his best he was probably no better than any one of the men currently trying to kill him. He’s got extensive combat training and it’s likely the very same training they have. He’s outgunned and outmatched.

What Alex does have that they don’t, what counts for at least twice their experience, is both a volcano of rage that erupts at the idea of any of them still being alive by the time Michael gets home, and a stubborn, bullheaded refusal to ever let anyone make him a victim in his own home again. Fuck that noise. And fuck them.

This is the side of Alex he hates most about himself, but he’ll be damned before he can deny that there’s a comfort to be found in switching off the parts of his brain that want to cower and hide and settling into something as profoundly fucked up as it is comforting. It's like slipping on an old, favorite jacket only to find it’s still covered in blood stains from the last time you wore it.

He’s still at a low angle, still praying that the muscles in his thigh aren’t going to choose this exact moment to fuck with him.

He’s armed, and he was taught how to fight in the Jesse Manes School of Brutality - namely, grab something heavy and beat the shit out of your victim until they can’t get up again. The skillet has done that job well enough.

He doesn’t move fast enough. A bullet catches him in his right shoulder before he even makes it to the wall. It spins him around and puts him right in the path of the fourth hostile, who hits him like a rampaging rhino and slams him back down against the kitchen table hard enough to splinter wood.

Only years of drill keep the gun in his hand and he brings it up just in time to put a bullet in the face of the dick who shot him.

That’s three.

He doesn’t stand a chance at catching the forth off guard. Pain explodes across his face as a fist collides with his nose, crunching cartilage and sending blood spraying across his face.

It’s not the first or the tenth time someone’s punched him in the face, but no matter how well he can take the pain, there’s no accounting for the way your eyes water and swell, making clear vision almost impossible even once you’re done reeling.

He brings a defensive arm upwards, and it’s enough to deflect the knife swinging down towards him away from his chest, drawing a line of pain across his side instead of puncturing a lung.

He doesn’t have the leverage here, not sprawled backward over the broken table, barely able to see. All he can do is go limp and trust that he’s angered his would-be-assassin enough to make him want to draw out the kill.

He has.

He does.

Grabbing Alex by the neck, he hauls him up off the table.

Alex slips his right leg between the hostile's, hooks the metal brace of his prosthesis behind the asshole’s knee, and tugs.

It’s fucking agony, and it’s the opening he needs.

He lets their combined momentum bring them both crashing down in a tumble of limbs, biting back a shout of pain as an elbow collides with his bleeding shoulder. He’s losing blood too fast, the edges of his vision starting to cloud, but there’s no fucking way he’s going to let Michael come home to find Alex has bled to death in their kitchen.

He holds on tight, wrapping his arms around the hostile in a furious bear hold, and squeezes until he’s able to wriggle his forearm over his throat.

Choking someone to death is horrific. It’s slow and brutal and takes a level of cold-bloodedness most people are lacking, for good fucking reason.

There’s one dead man in his kitchen. Two more dying. And this last one, thrashing, trying to pry Alex’s arm away from his neck, trying to inflict pain on whatever part of Alex he can reach in the hope that it’ll force him to let go.

 _Michael_ , he thinks. _You have to protect Michael. They’ll take him again. They’ll hurt him._

Alex grits his teeth and hardens his soul and hangs on until the smell of piss and shit soaks into the air and the body in his arms falls limp.

He shoves it off him, barely able to draw a breath himself, and tenses at the sound of someone else moving into the kitchen.

“What the _fuck_?” Michael shuts, the bag of groceries he’s holding crashing to the floor and spilling its contents. Two oranges roll lazily through a puddle of blood, and for some reason, Alex thinks that’s hilarious.

“I think we need to move house,” he says faintly, his head falling back with a thud that runs down his spine.

“Oh my god, Alex!”

Michael’s fuzzy as he moves into Alex’s field of vision, but he’s safe.

Decorating, Alex thinks, the red in his eyes morphing to black, is probably redundant now. "Alex!"

 


	2. Chapter 2

After the panic of the pastries back in Germany, Michael thinks he's done a decent job of learning Alex's likes and dislikes. He's got the most depressingly boring taste and a secret sweet tooth, and both are easy enough to work with. The drama now is less ‘ _will Alex like this flavor?_ ' and more ‘ _is there really a difference between eight dollar OJ and three dollar OJ?_ ’. He's finally cashed his alien abduction check and has never had so much money in his damn life. He doesn't plan on being extravagant, but he's never had the choice of buying anything abut the very cheapest option before and damnit if he's not curious. Maybe eight dollar OJ will change his life?

Then there's always the options of fresh OJ. They do have a juicer/blender monstrosity thanks to the insanely disgusting shakes Alex makes after PT. He can buy oranges and juice them by hand. That, he thinks smugly, is far more romantic than pouring shit out a carton.

He’s never spent more than forty bucks on groceries at any one time, so his palms are sweaty when he runs through the register and clocks up a ninety dollar total. When he hands over his card, he’s certain the cashier is already mentally rehearsing a polite way to tell him he can’t afford it.

She doesn’t, just smiles and the kid who bags everything up for him tells him too ‘ _have a nice day, sir_ ,’. This basic respect thing is fucking jarring.

Today is a weird day. It's ten years to the day that Michael helped cover up three murders, and here he is contemplating juice.

He's been an emotional knot all morning, a tangled mess of chaos and guilt and contentment. He knows he doesn't deserve the happiness he's found, he knows he needs to fight to be worthy of every heartfelt smile Alex bestows upon him.

He's working on it. Working to be worthy. That means recognizing his own patterns of behavior. It means knowing that today is going to be a hard day and taking precautions to guard himself against the negative emotions swirling in his head.

Fighting the paranoia that is telling him that every good thing in his life is existing on borrowed time, he puts his groceries in the truck and turns his mind to the plans he has for the evening. He's booked them a table at the fanciest restaurant in town - reservation courtesy of Isobel - and then they're going to watch a movie. He's absolutely going to distract himself with a good old fashioned makeout in the back row, and then they can drive back out to the cabin and curl up together in their bed and when he wakes up, it will be tomorrow. Today and all its associated pain will be behind them.

The radio belts out 90s pop and he bobs his head along with the beat, the drive home one he doesn't even need to think about.

He pulls up to park next to Alex's new Jeep, wondering how far Alex has made it in the decorating process, or if he's been distracted by emails. Slinging the groceries into his arms, he can hear the same radio channel playing from inside the cabin.

Probably because the front door has been blown off its hinges.

“Alex!” He trips over the top step in his panic. “What the fuck?” The groceries slide from his arm as blood-soaked terror rears up to smack him in the face.

The kitchen looks like something from a horror movie. There’s a body propped up against the sink, his head at a sharp angle and another almost underfoot, a bloody hole where an eye should be. A third is still alive, weakly choking on his own blood. The fourth, Alex has just finished choking to death.

“Alex!”

It’s hard to see how bad the damage is. Michael dives over two dead bodies, crashing down next to Alex as he makes a fucking joke. There’s blood everywhere. Too much blood. Too much of _Alex’s_ blood. Michael is sick and fucking tired of seeing Alex’s blood.

“What the fuck happened?” Michael demands, grabbing Alex by the shoulders as his eyes roll back. “Alex! Alex, wake up you fucking asshole!”

“S’rude,” Alex mumbles, painfully clinging to consciousness. His expression brightens to something earnest and happy when he sees Michael. “Oh hey, did you get milk?”

“There are four dead guys in our kitchen, Alex! Why are there dead guys in our fucking kitchen?” He’s not even been gone more than an hour…

Alex flails one arm and tries to use Michael as a brace to sit upright. He makes it about thirty degrees up before blanching, his skin almost grey under the blood. “Yeah, sorry about that…” he isn’t able to properly focus on Michael’s face, and that’s not a good thing, not in his experience.

Michael is about to call him every name under the sun when Alex lets his entire upper body go lax, counting on Michael to steady him. For a split second, he thinks he’s passed out, but then Alex is raising a gun and the shot he fires rattles violently around Michael’s head.

Another body falls in the doorway.

“We need to go,” Alex says, clawing at coherency to push at Michael urgently.

He’ll get zero arguments from Michael. Less than zero. Keeping one arm around Alex’s back, Michael hauls him up onto his feet and braces them hip to hip. They make it to the front door in time to see a Jeep speed to a stop barely feet from the front porch.

Alex moves again, not raising his gun, but throwing himself in front of Michael, arms around his neck, his body a living shield for the sudden barrage of bullets aimed in their direction.

It only takes a split second for Michael to understand what Alex is trying to do, and it’s a split second in which something in Michael nopes firmly out of this reality and into one that he controls. He doesn’t try and move Alex out of the line of fire. There’s no time, and he doesn’t have to. The bullets hit an invisible wall, dozens, then hundreds of them, hovering in the air like something out of an 80s sci-fi movie.

He supposes _he_ is something from an 80s sci-fi…

The bullets drop to the ground in a metal rainfall, scattering around their feet, bouncing down the steps and rolling innocuously over freshly painted woodwork. Even with Alex between them and Michael, they would’ve shredded both of them to pieces.

Michael has worked desperately hard to reclaim the sanctuary and safety of the cabin after Jesse Manes’s infiltration and his own ill-advised telekinetic shitshow. This place is special, sacred almost, and now they dare to defile that? To take away the one and only home he and Alex have ever had?

There are two soldiers still in the Jeep, staring at them in bewilderment, their weapons empty and useless.

Rage unlike anything Michael has ever known explodes from him in a shockwave. Alex, at the epicenter, is sheltered, but the Jeep and the two men inside it stand no chance. Michael throws it almost thirty feet in the air, flips it on its head, and lets it come crashing back down to earth.

Let them walk away from that.

Alex, wavering on his feet, leaning into Michael for more than just physical support, looks at him with wide, stunned eyes. “Michael…” Before Michael can start to panic, before he can worry that _this_ is the thing that finally brings reality crashing into Alex’s consciousness, bloody hands press against Michael’s jaw and Alex kisses him. It’s rough and over in seconds, but it's not a call to Area 51 so who the fuck is he to complain? “We seriously need to work this-“ he flails a hand in the direction of the crumpled Jeep, “all out. I need a spreadsheet or like, I don’t know a flow chart. Pie chart-“

“Okay, you’ve lost a lot of blood,” Michael says, maneuvering him towards his truck. “Let's get you to Max-“

“Can’t-“ Alex shakes his head. “Think someone at work would notice a sparkly handprint on my face. It’s not bad, really. The bullet didn’t even hit anything important-“

“You’re shot?” Michael demands furiously. He realizes belatedly that the blood soaking through Alex’s t-shirt isn’t just from his face and the visible slice across his abdomen. There’s a fucking _hole_ in his shoulder.

“Least I’m balanced, right?” Alex says with a pained smile. This is the asshole who wears a T-shirt with the words ‘ _I had a blast!_ ’ blazoned on his chest while he does PT. He's got the most twisted sense of humor of anyone Michael has ever met.

“You’re fucking delirious,” he snaps. “Get in the car. I’m calling Valenti.”

“It's just a graze, Michael.” Once Alex is in the passenger seat of the truck, he presses the palm of his hand firmly over his shoulder. “Hurts like a bitch, but it's okay.”

“You have no fucking concept of okay,” Michael shouts, grinding the gears as he careens onto the road. “Zero. What the fuck just happened? Those guys were military, right?”

“Special Forces,” Alex says, taking Michael’s phone from him and trying to call Valenti. The job is made harder by the wet stickiness of the blood all over his hands. Michael snatches it back and makes the call for him. “I don't know if they were there for you or me. Let's hope it's me they were after.”

With the phone wedged between his shoulder and his ear, Michael struggles to shoot him a look that properly conveys how fucking stupid that sentence is. “Why the hell would we hope that? _Goddamnit, Valenti_ , answer your fucking phone!”

Despite looking like an extra from a slasher film, Alex manages to look singularly unimpressed. “Because no one has any reason to go after you. I wiped your file, remember?”

That's true. Which means it probably _was_ Alex they were after. Michael feels sick just thinking about it. “They think you're on the home team, though. Why would they send people to kill you? Unless...” he can't help the fear from creeping into his voice. “You don't think your dad-“

“No.” Alex shakes his head. “Not possible. But Flint, maybe?” He frowns, troubled. “I don't know. I need to make some calls.”

“No. No way. You're not putting a call into the people who just tried to fucking murder you in our kitchen! Goddamnit Valenti!” Still no answer. 

“He's probably on shift. And they weren't here to kill me.” Alex’s head falls back against the headrest, his lashes falling dark against his cheeks.

“Come on, darlin’.” Michael’s anger drains away, snow melting into rain. He reaches over and squeezes Alex's knee. “Eyes front, private.”

“Call Todd,” Alex says, dragging his eyes open. “We need to control the scene.”

“You need a doctor,” Michael says, ending the unanswered call to Valenti. “I'm taking you to the hospital.”

“You know you can't. Just... the bunker. There's a first aid kit. I'll talk you through it.”

That's officially the most insane thing he's ever heard. “No.” He shakes his head, questioning Alex’s sanity, not for the first time.

“Michael...”

No. _No._  Michael can't fucking do this again. He _can't_. “Do you know what it does to me, seeing you like this? Do you have _any_ fucking clue what it's like seeing you covered in blood? Knowing that someone hurt you. Again. That I couldn't protect you. _Again_. It fucking kills me, Alex. Please. _Please_ let me just... let me. Please let me.”

“I'm okay, Michael,” Alex curls his hand around the one braces on his knee and draws it up to his lips. “I'm sorry I scared you. I wasn't going to let them hurt you, I-“

Angry, Michael pulls his hand free and grips the wheel hard. “Don't fucking apologize. What happened isn't on you. What happens next? That fucking is. So what's it gonna be, Alex? You gonna let me in or not?”

A part of him feels guilty for putting this on Alex now when he's so clearly in worlds of pain and is struggling just to focus, but he's spent too many hours terrified for Alex’s life to even consider letting him risk it out of reckless self-sufficiency.

He waits with bated breath as Alex fights an internal war and sags in relief when he nods. “Okay. Okay, love. Hospital.”


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've finally worked out an update schedule! I'll be updating this story every weekday, and updating Ad Astra and anything else over the weekend. Getting back into a proper schedule will soothe my nerves! 
> 
> That said, I am out of town tomorrow, so don't expect this to come into place until Thursday. 
> 
> Thanks for reading!

The things Alex is willing to do for Michael Guerin. He has shit he needs to do. Calls he needs to make. Bodies he needs to make sure are hidden. And here he is, sitting on his ass in a hospital room while people freak out around him.

Michael is hovering, a hand on the back of his neck and a fractured, hurting wildness in his eyes. That look is the only reason Alex doesn’t march back out the door.

Maybe walk, not march. He grimaces and digs his knuckles into the straining muscles of his thigh. Maybe crawl. Goddamnit, he hates his body.

There’s a whole mountain of paperwork to go through when someone rocks up at the ER looking like Alex - none of which they can afford to deal with until the team Alex has sent to hide the seven bodies littering the cabin have done their jobs.

He’s had fraught conversations with both Blackburn and Nichols, and both have quickly maneuvered themselves into action, but that doesn’t make Alex any less twitchy.

And it doesn't solve the immediate issue of getting Alex treatment without setting off every alarm bell in the building.

They solve the issue by doing what Alex does best: manipulating the hell out of the situation.

Michael’s smart enough to know what Alex is doing the second he turns his face and hides in his shoulder.

“He’s a _combat_ vet,” Michael barks at anyone who comes near them, “with PTSD. Hospitals are triggering as fuck, okay? He needs to see Doctor Valenti.” He keeps one arm around Alex’s waist and curls the other over the back of his head and plays the protective fiance perfectly.

Alex isn’t exactly famous in Roswell, but most people have heard of him thanks to Isobel’s parade in his honor. He absolutely hates the idea of anyone looking at him with the pity that is surely in their eyes right now, but needs must. They stop paying attention to the details of his injuries and see only what is presented to them. 

 _Poor Alex Manes._  

“I’ll take it from here, thank you.” It’s a good twenty minutes before Kyle shows, but he doesn’t waste any time. “Is this a…” he twirls his finger and then points at the ceiling in what is probably supposed to mean 'an alien thing'.

“Yeah,” Michael says, reluctantly letting Alex out from his arms in order for Kyle to treat him. “Someone attacked him-“

Kyle tenses and looks over his shoulder towards the doorway. Beyond it, people mill back and forth. Anyone could walk in. “Are they - do I need to inform security?”

“They’re dead,” Alex says flatly. “Can you?” He waves a hand at his nose: breathing is a bitch.

“Keep talking,” Kyle orders Michael, taking Alex’s face in his hands and running through all the checks for a concussion before snapping Alex’s nose back into place.

This time it is tears of relief that fill Alex’s eyes. _Christ_ , that’s so much better. He can focus… almost.

Michael talks Kyle through what happened at the cabin while Kyle runs triage, cataloging Alex’s injuries with an increasingly grave expression. When he gets to the gunshot, his brows pull tight. “I have to report this,” he says.

“Sure,” Alex nods in understanding. “I understand that. Just… not yet. I’ve got people handling the cleanup, we just need more time.”

“It’s done.” Blackburn steps into the room and surveys them all with a calmness that says he’s about three breaths from doing something Alex will disprove of. “You’re getting sloppy in your old age, Manes.”

He says it for Alex’s benefit, and because they’re pathologically incapable of communicating like real people. “Still better than you,” Alex fires back, finding comfort in the familiar. He lets Blackburn track professional eyes over him and meets his gaze firmly.  _I'm fine,_ it says.

“I’ve put some of our people on the door,” Blackburn says, rolling his eyes. “And I’ve got a safehouse lined up for you when you’re cleared to leave.”

“Couple of hours,” Alex says, knowing Kyle and Michael will riot if he tries to head out sooner.

“Not a chance,” Kyle shakes his head.

“I’m with Valenti,” Michael actually blinks in self-aware bemusement as he says it. “You’re hurt, and-“

“And I have a job to do,” Alex points out. “And someone’s ass to kick for destroying our kitchen!”

Blackburn turns to Kyle and Alex _knows_ that look. That’s his _fuck you_ look - one Alex has torn him multiple new assholes for in the past. “Hey, Doc?”

Kyle has the expression of a man caught in the path of an oncoming freight train. “Yes?“

“In your professional opinion, do you find this man medically fit for duty?” Blackburn’s smirking, and as soon as the world stops cycling nauseatingly in and out of color, Alex is going to throw something heavy at his face.

Kyle’s shoulders relax as he falls back into the comfort of his profession. “No,” he says firmly. “I do not.”

“Fuck you, Blackburn,” Alex says angrily.

“Is that any way to talk to your XO?” Blackburn leans back on his heels and settles into parade rest. “I’ll keep you in the loop,” he promises, “but you need to keep your ass in that bed or I’ll get the Colonel down here.” Alex has no doubt that Nichols would actually get his ass on a plane if he felt the need to, and he’s just as good at putting Alex in his place over the phone. “You gave me this job for a reason,” he reminds Alex. “Let me do it.”

There’s no one in the world Alex truly trusts to protect Michael as well as he will, but he supposes if he had to pick someone, Todd would be top of the list. Forget any personal feelings he might have for Michael as his own friend, he’ll put himself between him and a bullet purely for Alex’s sake.

Alex nods stiffly.

“Major,” Blackburn says, uncharacteristically serious. He snaps his heels and leaves.

“Are you going to let me do my job, now?” Kyle demands exasperatedly.

Alex sighs and slumps back against Michael. “Do your worst, Doc.”

He’s lost count of the number of doctors he’s seen over the years. More have been like Kyle - kind, compassionate, gentle - than not, but you’ve seen one, you’ve seen them all, and Alex feels his skin crawl. It’s not Kyle’s fault. Alex has been forced to get over his intense dislike of being touched while in pain, but there’s something about having Michael at his side that’s fucking with him. Michael is the one person on the planet who is allowed to see Alex unguarded and his body is responding to his closeness by trying to tell him that it’s safe to be vulnerable.

Kyle, purely by merit of being an interloper, is fucking with that.

Maybe he even understands. He works in silence, forgoing his usual humor and need to talk a patient through what he is doing and why. It allows Alex the chance to pretend that it’s just him and Michael.

There’s something almost nostalgic about it. Alex, the taste of blood still on his lips, bruised and brittle, his fingers entwined with Michael’s. If he closes his eyes, he’s seventeen again.

Kyle’s hand curls gently around Alex’s shoulder. He’s cleaned out and dressed the cut on his side, as well as the entry wound in his shoulder. Now he needs a better angle to repeat the process on the exit wound.

Michael moves to allow Alex space, then immediately resumes his position. “You’re gonna drive me to a nervous breakdown, you know that right?” he sounds tired. Tired, and slightly teary.

“I’m sorry,” Alex says. “I’m not… good at - at this.” 

“You’re a pain in the ass,” Michael says, his exasperation fond. “I know you’re not used to it, but you’ve gotta accept that other people worry about you. You putting on that stoic face of yours doesn’t change that.” He reaches up and runs butterfly kisses down Alex’s cheek with his fingers. “Valenti, back me up.”

Kyle doesn’t say anything. He’s not actually done anything to continue his treatment since turning Alex around.

“You okay back there?” Alex asks.

“Dude,” Michael snaps. “Stop gawking at my fiance!”

Looking over his shoulder hurts like a bitch, but the surprise of Michael’s statement is worth the pain. Kyle blinks and shakes the cobwebs from his head. “Sorry. I’m so sorry.”

Alex expresses his disbelief with one eloquent eyebrow. “It’s fine. You’re doing us a solid. No need to apologize.”

Gloved hands settle against his back, light and careful. “I really do,” Kyle mutters.

“Not now, Valenti,” Michael warns.

“I’m missing something, aren’t I?” Alex frowns, straightening up and wincing. The codeine Kyle gives him is slow to kick in, and after months spent on high doses of painkillers, his tolerance is through the roof.

Michael leans forward and kisses his forehead. “Nothing you gotta worry about, sweetheart.”

Alex will throw himself on a grenade before ever admitting how warm and sickeningly happy that stupid little endearment makes him feel.

“You’re supposed to be relaxing,” Kyle says, cleaning the wound and carefully applying small butterfly bandages to help close it. Alex has been lucky - none of his injuries have required actual stitches, and these small strips, while less robust than surgical sutures, will eventually dissolve. He just has to take it very, very careful. Michael is going to mother hen him to death.

By the time Kyle is finished, Alex is starting to slump forwards. He’s tired and his head is pounding, and while he’s still in pain, the edge has softened to something he can live with. He just wants to sleep.

That dream is foiled by the arrival of Max Evans, uniform and all.

Alex looks sideways at Kyle, who is cleaning away the tools he’s used to play Operation with Alex. A bullet wound automatically gets reported, but that’s the whole reason why they requested Kyle. He’s not had a chance to file anything.

“Deputy,” Kyle straightens. “You here officially, or…?”

“Shit,” Max says, taking off his hat and looking down at Alex, “you okay? Blackburn called me." Of course he did. That can actually work in their favor if done right. 

“I’m awesome,” Alex grimaces. He nods at Kyle, who is hovering in the doorway, unwilling to leave if Max is there to harass his patient. “It’s fine. Thanks, Kyle.”

“You’re not a complete dick, Valenti,” Michael says begrudgingly.

Kyle snorts and rolls his head, flipping Michael the bird as he leaves. "I'll be back soon. Don't do anything stupid."

The moment he’s gone: “I need to talk to you,” says Max urgently. He looks between Michael and Alex, wary and troubled, so it’s clearly another ‘alien thing’. Alex gets it. Twenty years of hiding the truth from everyone, it’s going to take time before that instinct to keep everything a secret develops enough to let Alex in. “Both of you.”

Michael drags a tired hand over his face. “Now isn’t a great time.” He says the words in a way that whisper ‘ _Alex comes first_ ’ and they run warm and comforting down Alex’s spine. He’s not taken his hands off Alex in hours: a touch on the wrist or his back, on his knee, their shoulders brushing. The weight of him at Alex’s side is more of a balm than any number of drugs Kyle might give him.

Max likely isn’t used to Michael refusing him anything, but he looks more worried than pissed. “I know, but it’s ur-“

A soft rap on the doorframe diverts their attention. Christ, it's Central Station, not a hospital.

Alex suddenly has to wrap his free hand around Michael’s arm to stop him from launching himself across the room.

“What the fuck are you doing here?” Michael demands, shaking off Alex’s arm and placing himself firmly in front of the bed.

Alex can’t recall a single time any of his brothers haven’t looked like giants to him. Even Flint, who is only a few inches taller, has always seemed mountainous; spine straight, shoulders broad, and unflinchingly cold. A true Manes Man like both their brothers.

He looks smaller now, highlighted in the doorway, his arm in a sling. “I’m here to see my Commanding Officer,” he says, looking over Michael’s shoulder at Alex.

“He’s off duty,” Michael snaps. “Fuck off.”

Alex props himself up on the bed with his elbow, an awkward, painful shuffle that leaves him feeling cold and helpless. “Michael,” Alex says, using the same tone of voice he has to use on Blackburn to stop him starting a fight with his own shadow, “why don’t you and Max go talk outside? You can catch me up on the details later.”

Both Michael and Max immediately start to speak over each other.

“I don’t think-“

“No fucking way!”

“Not a suggestion,” Alex says firmly. “Go, it’s fine.”

Michael looks as though he’s questioning every single aspect of Alex’s sanity. “There’s not a chance in hell I am leaving you alone with Jesse Manes Junior!” His fists clench at his sides, white-knuckled and trembling. If they’re not careful, he’s going to start to slip. He’s been on edge for hours now, and putting him face to face with someone who had a direct hand in kidnapping and imprisoning him is just about the worst thing that can be happening.

“Michael,” Alex says, gently drawing him back away from the edge. He knows he has a tendency to fall back on old habits: issuing orders has always been surprisingly easy and it always enforces an emotional distance between himself and the person he’s addressing. He can’t do that with Michael. “You need to step outside and get some air.” He aims for softness instead of steel and pointedly reaches over to run a hand over his tense knuckles.

Max seems to understand first. He nods. “Come on, dude, Alex’ll be fine.” He puts a hand on Michael’s bicep, ready to encouragingly steer him away if necessary.

“The Sergeant is just here to talk,” Alex says, trying to take that personal element out of the equation. “There’s nothing to worry about, is there?”

Flint surprises him. “No, sir.”

“Go on,” Alex encourages.

He can see the painful reluctance in Michael’s body as Max pulls him away. In the doorway, he stops by Flint and says, “If you hurt him, I will break every fucking bone in your body and then give you to Carlos for kindling.”

It’s a hell of a threat. One Alex expects Flint to laugh at. Surprisingly, he doesn’t. “I’m not here to hurt anyone. You have my word.”

Michael sneers. “Five minutes,” he says and follows Max from the room.

 

 

 


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter warning: Alex and Flint have a fairly in-depth discussion of their childhood, so warnings for child abuse and homophobia. Extra warnings for the fact that they both do a lot of victim blaming, both internal and external. Jesse Manes continues to be the Absolute Worst.
> 
> This is by no means the hurtiest of the chapters in this story, but it's fairly graphic and in no way happy.

There’s something almost nostalgic about sitting on a hospital bed with two back eyes and another man’s fingerprints around his neck while his brother looks on dispassionately.

“Sergeant,” Alex prompts. The sooner Flint leaves, the sooner Alex can work on convincing Kyle to let him leave as well. He needs to get Michael somewhere safe. “What can I do for you?”

Keep it professional. That’s all he has to do.

“I want to come back to work,” Flint says, following his lead, at least so far. “I’ve been cleared for light duties, and I think I can continue to be an asset to the Project.” He makes no mention of the fact that Alex is the reason he's on medical leave at all. Maybe this will be yet another elephant in the room? They've gathered themselves one hell of a menagerie over the years.

“You’ll first need to explain to me why the Project even has an R&D department.” He can take a guess and mentally scolds himself for his laziness. It’s been days, not months since his promotion, but they have been days he’s spent being too distracted by domestic bliss to properly do his job.

That’s going to have to change. He’s underestimated the threat they are still facing and he’s firmly on the back foot, off balance and ill-prepared to deal with their enemy. He doesn’t even know _who_ their enemy is.

He needs to get a back to work. It’s clear by now that the Project was never just his father and a few outliers, but a fully funded and autonomous division, one he needs to understand fully if he’s going to continue to divert attention from Michael and his siblings.

“I’ll put together a report,” Flint says. “Everything I’ve been working on for the past four years. And everything else I know of. You’re restructuring, yes? Let me help you.”

“And why,” Alex says, amused, “would I trust you when I’ve just had our father - your hero - arrested for treason?”

Silence falls on the room. _Yeah_ , Alex thinks, _exactly_.

“Do you remember when dad decided you were old enough to learn how to fight?” Flint eventually asks, bypassing Alex’s question for one of his own. So much for keeping this professional.

Alex was ten and excited. Flint was fourteen and vicious. “I remember you dislocated my shoulder,” Alex says mildly.

Flint doesn't grimace or look ashamed, but neither does he look smug about it. “Dad was so proud of me,” he says almost wistfully.

Flint had looked startled at the time, struck dumb by Alex’s scream, almost as if he'd not expected the consequences of his actions to be so visceral. He'd reached for Alex and offered him a hand, at least until their dad clapped him on the back and laughed, full of praise for one son and casually ignoring the second. Oh, he eventually drove Alex to the ER, but things changed that day for all of them. Flint used to be Alex's favorite. That didn't last. 

“What do you want, Flint?” Alex sighs. He’s too tired for a walk down memory lane.

For the first time in Alex’s memory, Flint looks supremely uncomfortable. “I read your report,” he says. “The one you gave after your arrest.” Of course he did.

“If you’re here to accuse me of something, just get on with it,” Alex snaps. “It’s been a long day.”

Flint shakes his head. “No. That’s not-.” His shoulders slump and he shuffles slightly. His leg’s probably aching fiercely. “Look, I didn’t know - I know you had it rough, and I tried to protect you-“

Yeah, no, Alex is not even close to being in the mood for this conversation. “Oh spare me,” he says in disgust.

His brother screws his eyes closed and takes a breath - he's always so blatant in his tempers, always so incendiary and destructive, but ultimately short-lived in his rage. It doesn’t escape Alex that his temper is more like his father’s than any of his brothers. “Just, let me-“ he holds up his un-bandaged arm and pleads for a minute.

Alex leans back on the bed and raises a mocking brow. He’s not ten anymore. He’s not that scared little boy. He’s Flint’s CO. _He’s_ in control.

Flint lets out a long breath. That’s something they both learned from their mom. “Dad was rough on all of us,” he says. “Remember that Christmas, after mom left?” Alex grimaces. Oh, he remembers. He remembers being six years old and hiding under the kitchen table while all three of his brothers got their dad’s belt after they stole some of his whiskey and got drunk in the back yard. They’d not let Alex join them - he was a baby - but Flint’d been over the moon to be included.

“I remember,” he says. He remembers trying to make them feel better, after, and he remembers Flint crawling into his bed that night and crying against Alex’s back.

“I thought,” Flint rubs his neck awkwardly. “With you. I thought-“

“You thought I was weak,” Alex says with a bitter smile. “That I should’ve sucked it up like the rest of you did.”

Flint nods. “You were always so little, and _so_ damn sensitive. You cried so damn much and it drove mom crazy-“ he pauses and swallows and looks guilty for the first time. Alex just tries not to let him see how much that one still hurts. “I just mean that I thought you were blowing it out of proportion, or that-“

“I deserved it,” Alex says. “That’s what you thought, right? That he was just toughening me up.”

His brother nods slowly. “I thought he was trying to help you,” Flint says. “Like… better from him than from someone else, right? Like teaching us to fight. Yeah, it sucked, but it meant we could look after ourselves.”

“Whatever you need to tell yourself,” Alex sneers. “A plus parenting from Jesse Manes: torture your kids so no one else can!”

“No, but that’s just it!” Flint says earnestly. He takes an extra few steps into the room and while he’s still several feet away, Alex has to bite down on the instinct to shrink back. “I read your report. Dad smacked us around, and he got the belt out on special occasions, but he _never_ did those things to the rest of us.”

“So what, I’m lying?” Alex knew the details would end up on record, but he’ll admit this is a scenario he’s not accounted for.

“I thought you were at first,” Flint admits. That was easier.”

“God forbid I besmirch the precious Manes legacy,” Alex spits the words.

“I don’t give a damn about our legacy, Alex! I wanted to believe you lied because otherwise I let a madman brutalize my little brother.” Alex is horrified to see Flint’s eyes turn glassy. “And I was jealous of you! I was practically invisible to him, and you got all his attention. I hated you for it!”

“He’d rub salt in the wounds,” Alex has no control over his own tongue. All he can do is mirror Flint’s emotions. His brother hates him? He can get in line. There are far more people in the world who hate him than who love him and that makes the miracle that is Michael so much more precious. He balances the scale all on his own. “After he was done beating me, he’d hold me down and pour salt into the wounds to _purify_ me, to clean away the stain of my perversions.” Their father is the reason Alex has so much experience with zipties - by that point, it didn’t matter how terrified Alex was, the pain was too much to endure without trying to escape. If his dad was feeling benevolent, he’d cut Alex loose before going to bed.

“Alex-“

Flint’s timing sucks. Any other day and maybe, maybe he’d be up for this conversation. Maybe he’d take some small amount of pleasure from hearing the defeat and guilt in his brother’s voice.

But today is a day someone tried to kill him. It’s a day he’s taken lives with his bare hands, using some of the skills taught to him by the same man who taught him that the only way forward is _through_ the pain, and that showing even a fraction of weakness was inviting someone to hurt you more. It’s a day people came into his home, into a place he was supposed to be safe in and violated it.

He hurts, a lot, but he’s been hurt worse and he probably will be again, and the only way he has of dealing with that is to stay emotionally detached. There’s only space for one weakness in his heart, and that space belongs to Michael.

If Alex has to internally justify the pain of his childhood, he does so by reminding himself that every broken bone, every laceration, has made him strong enough to get back up again and plant himself between Michael and the world.

“Is that what you want, Flint? You want me to absolve you of your guilt? You were so desperate for dad’s approval you completely failed to understand the reason you’re supposed to put on that uniform. You think being a soldier makes you worthy of respect? You think it gives you power and authority and that by being a proper Manes Man somehow justifies all the shit you went through as a kid. But let me tell you something, brother,” Alex can see Flint visibly shrink under his words and almost pities him. “You’re in my division, now, and that uniform has only _one_ meaning. Your job, your whole reason for being, is to _protect_. That is the purpose of a soldier. It’s not to win fights. It’s not to be the biggest or the strongest or the scariest. It’s to put yourself in front of the innocent and to be a fucking shield. If all dad really cared about was making us the best soldiers we could be, all you ever had to do was protect me. But he didn’t. And you’ve spent years living his lie for him.”

That’s the most he’s said to his brother in decades. It’s the longest they’ve been in the same space for years.

“You protected Guerin,” Flint says, all of the bravado and strength draining from him, leaving him looking as tired as Alex feels.

“Because he’s innocent,” Alex says. No matter what Michael might be, no matter where he has come from, Michael is innocent. He’s the kindest, gentlest, most loving man on this or any other planet.

“So are you,” Flint says sadly.

Alex laughs bitterly. There are a number of dead men back at the cabin who might disagree with that statement. “No,” he says, “not anymore. Not for a long time.”


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The next chapter will be posted on Monday. Updates to Home Fires and Ad Astra on their way over the weekend! <3

“You did _what_?” Michael still has Alex’s blood dried under his fingernails and he blames that for the explosion of anger that rattles the walls of the small waiting area Max has pulled him to. Up until now, Michael has kept half an eye on the doorway at the far end of the corridor, unable to believe that he’s actually just left Alex alone with his brother. Max manages to re-divert his attention with a spectacular bomb drop. “You - no. _No_!”

Of all the things that have the potential to ruin Michael’s life, Liz Ortecho is the one hand delivered by karma. And Max-

“I didn’t have a choice! She _died_!” Max says in a low, urgent whisper. He has one hand on Michael’s arm and is pleading with him to listen. Michael is listening, he is, and he’s not liking a damn thing he’s hearing.

“And since when has that ever mattered? You’re a cop, Max! Do you go around resurrecting everyone who dies on your watch? No! Why? Because we _protect_ the secret!”

“I brought Alex back,” Max snaps furiously. “He knows everything!”

That’s not… Michael shakes his head. “You mean you saved the guy who took a bullet keeping the three of us safe? You want a gold sticker?” That’d been one of the right real signs for Michael that maybe, despite everything, his brother still loved him. He doesn’t get to throw that back in Michael’s face now. “And he doesn’t know everything. He doesn’t know-“ Michael takes a shuddering breath, the walls of the room closing in on him. “Why, Max? Why did it have to be Liz Ortecho?” Anyone else. They could deal with it being anyone else. Alex knows. Valenti knows. Michael trusts them. He trusts in their vigorous need to shelter and protect. He can never trust Liz Ortecho. Not when Rosa is…

The clench of his brother’s jaw is a painful contrast to the wet gleam in his eyes. In Max’s heartbroken, tormented expression, Michael sees his whole world collapse like a pack of cards. “I love her,” Max says brokenly. “I always have.”

Who would ever have guessed that the two of them had so much in common? Head over heels in love with the one human on the planet so perfectly poised to destroy their entire world.

“Fuck!” Bile burns the back of Michael’s throat. There’s only one way out of this. One way forward that doesn’t bulldoze through the entire life he has managed to build with Alex. The only way that means Michael gets to preserve the way Alex looks at him.

And he can’t take it.

Max loves Liz. He might even love Liz like Michael loves Alex.

Michael’s selfish, but there’s a line. When Isobel sent Liz away, she was nothing more than a high school crush. Only… only not.

What if Alex hadn’t accepted him? What if, instead of protecting them, Alex had become a threat? Would he have let Isobel send him away? Let her violate his mind. They’d talked about it. They’d even made plans. But would he ever have been able to go through with it?

Maybe. For Max and for Isobel. But that would’ve been it. Game over. End of the line. Michael would never have recovered. What if it's the same for Max?

“Alex doesn’t know?” Max asks tentatively. “About Rosa?”

“No,” Michael slumps down into one of the hard plastic chairs and puts his head in his hands. Max sits awkwardly next to him.

“I thought-“

Yeah, Michael knows what he thought.

“You know why Alex is doing what he’s doing? Why he’s running the secret military alien hate squad who want us dead?” It’s taken Michael some time to figure it out himself, often struck dumb by the lengths Alex is willing to go to to keep them safe.

“Because he’s in love with you?”

“That’s part of it,” Michael admits, “but it was yours and Izzy’s names he took of his dad’s hit list first. He didn’t have to. If I was all he cared about, he’d not have bothered. It took him weeks of work.” Weeks when he’d come home with shadows in his eyes and a tenseness under his skin that only ever came from prolonged contact with his father. “He did it because protecting the innocent is the one thing he cares about most in the world.” You don’t have to be a shrink to understand why. No one saved Alex, so he’s taken the job on himself.

“You think he’d change his mind if he knew,” Max says softly. “You think he’d stop loving you.”

The words burn. “I think,” Michael says bitterly, “that the only innocents in this scenario are Rosa and those girls.”

He knows Alex will understand the guy in the desert. He didn’t bat an eyelash when Michael dropped a jeep on the two soldiers who tried to kill them at the cabin. He understands self-defense better than most ever can. But what happened that night in the cave...

Michael swore to protect Isobel from the truth all those years ago. That can never change.

And Alex…

“I think that if I had to tell him, had to make him chose between protecting us and containing a valid threat-“

“Is it though?” Max asks. “Valid? It’s been years, and -“

“And we still don’t know what happened, or why,” Michael shakes his head. “And if we don’t know that, we can’t guarantee it won’t happen again, so yeah, that’s how he’ll see it.” That’s how Alex’s mind works. He’s constantly preparing for the next fight, the next danger lurking around the corner. It’s how he’s survived as long as he has, and it’s why he’ll ultimately come to the conclusion that the three ‘innocent civilians’ he’s bleed and suffered to protect aren’t as innocent as they have claimed to be.

If Michael puts him in the position where he has to choose… it’ll kill something in both of them.

Either Alex turns a blind eye to it out of love for Michael and compromises that unblinking core of morality, or he does what his family do so well.

The best Michael can hope for is a bullet between the eyes, because he’ll never survive watching the love in Alex’s eyes turn to suspicion and fear.

He shoves himself angrily to his feet and starts to pace around the waiting area.

This is the axe that he’s been waiting to fall. The death knell of all he’s been stupid enough to dream of.

Max drags a frustrated hand through his hair. “Okay, okay so what if I talk to Liz? Tell her the truth-“

“Max-“

Max straightens in his chair, earnest and hopeful. “Just enough. Just about the thing. Not about Rosa. That never even has to come up, right?”

He looks so desperate, clinging to the hopeless fairytale of a happily ever after. The kindest thing for Michael to do would be to dissuade him, to spare him from the agonized turmoil currently in his own heart. “Could you do that? Lie to her? Forever?”

Max squares his shoulders. “You’re lying to Alex,” he says, like it’s the same thing. Maybe it is. Michael can’t see the wood from trees anymore. He’s so tired of lying.

“I’m not the reason Alex’s sister is dead,” Michael whispers. His words make Max flinch, but Michael’s attention is pulled away from him and into the corridor. Flint Manes has just left Alex's room, and beyond that - “Either way, you need to figure something out,” he says. “Because she’s talking to Valenti, and she looks pretty fucking freaked.”

Max is up and out of his chair in a heartbeat. Neither Valenti or Liz have seen either of them, and it needs to stay that way. They watch as Valenti gently touches her arm and for the first time, Michael feels a swell of sympathy for his brother. Michael might have spent ten years wallowing in misery over Alex, but he never had to see him in a relationship with another man. The idea turns his heart cold.

“Oh shit,” Max whispers, his eyes widening as Liz turns.

Michael charges down the corridor. She’s on the move, but it’s not Max she’s heading towards, it’s Alex’s room.

She makes it there seconds before Michael.

“Alex! Oh my god, what happened? Are you okay?”

The smile at blooms on Alex’s face is the very rare ones he saves for the people he loves the most. It strikes Michael in the chest and leaves him hovering, pained, in the doorway as she rushes to the bed and wraps her small hands over Alex’s un-bandaged arm.

“Got into a fight with a cow,” Alex says, his smile pulling at the split in his lip but no less bright.

“A- a cow,” Liz says, reaching forward to gently touch her fingers to the violent bruise on his cheek. “Must’ve been a big cow.”

“Seven-foot, at least,” Alex says. Michael wonders if Liz has had this conversation with him before - bruises with no explanation and a blatant lie offered with the screaming undertone of _please don’t ask me anymore_. “I’m okay, really. Michael rescued me.”

That’s an invitation to get his ass out of the doorway. Michael moves as if drawn forward by an invisible rope and settles down on the far edge of the bed. He doesn’t hesitate to rest his thigh against Alex’s, though he can no longer tell if he’s being protective or possessive.

Valenti, who is standing at the foot of the bed, snorts and rolls his eyes while Liz’s jaw drops. She looks between Michael and Alex with enormous eyes and suddenly explodes into sunshine warm happiness. “Oh my god! When did this happen?”

“Senior Year,” Michael says. He must sound more defensive than he means to because Alex pulls his hand from under Liz’s and wraps at around Michael’s fingers.

“Holy shit. Holy shit! That’s amazing, Alex. Wait! _Wait_ , is Guerin _Museum Guy_?”

“Did I go through all of Senior Year as ‘Museum Guy’?” Michael doesn’t have to fake a smile. The idea of Alex telling Liz and Maria about him… of him meaning enough for him to even want to share that… he loves Alex Manes so fucking much.

“I wasn’t going to out you!” Alex protests. He returns the gentle squeeze Michael gives his hand and turns to Liz. “Enough about us, what brings Liz Ortecho back to Roswell?”

“High School reunion,” Liz shrugs, brushing her long hair back over her shoulder. Michael remembers her doing the same thing countless times at school and wonders if she’s changed at all.

Even bruised to hell, Alex can raise a mean eyebrow. “Seriously?”

She shakes her head and starts to laugh. “No! No, I just…” she looks away, her shoulders slumping.

Alex’s fingers untangle themselves from Michael’s and reach for her instead and _fuck_ if Michael doesn’t read some kind of divine symbolism in that one fucking move. “I know what this week is,” he says gently, reaching up and tucking another loose strand of hair behind her ear. “I miss her too.”

The breath catches in Michael’s throat. Of course. Who the fuck did Alex hang out with at school? Liz, Maria, and Rosa.

Well, that fucking answers that, doesn’t it?

Michael didn’t just cover up the murder of an innocent teenage girl.

He covered up the murder of one of his fiancé’s closest friends.

A bullet to the head is the least he deserves. 


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Featuring some long over-due cuddles and Michael, the world's most dramatic bi. Also featuring inappropriate humor, too many sci-fi references, and projectile furniture. 
> 
> Warnings: mentions of Michael's abusive foster parents, and suicidal imagery.

For something called a ‘safehouse’, Michael feels anything but. The closest thing to safe that he can find in these unfamiliar walls is the weight of Alex against him. That’s a safety of the soul. Alex guards Michael’s heart.

Physical safety, four walls and security he trusts in, is something they’re lacking.

Still, tonight is his watch.

The safehouse has two bedrooms, a kitchenette, a bathroom, and a small living area. They’ve already tried one of the beds and cycled through a whole shitshow of emotions. Neither of them can find sleep in a bed that’s not their own.

Alex is bruised from the eyebrows down, lurid blossoms of colors staining both his cheeks, his lip split and swollen and thumbprints around his throat. His left arm is in a sling and there are bandages around his waist that need changing twice a day. His ribs are bruised, but thankfully not broken. Add all that to the existing conditions he’s already dealing with and you end up with a human ball of pain who can’t get comfortable no matter how many pillows and blankets Michael tries to support him with.

Their compromise is this: Alex, pumped so full of drugs he’ll sleep, and Michael, his willing alien comfort blanket. They’re on the couch, Michael’s legs propped up on the coffee table, and Alex curled up on his lap like the cat Michael so often accuses him of being. There’s a blanket tucked over them both and Alex’s clean, slightly damp hair is soft under Michael’s chin.

The next few weeks are going to suck. Alex has sedatives on prescription, and he can even be persuaded to take them when things get bad, but he’s always lethargic and depressed after. The drugs in his system now are hardcore and they’ll come with one hell of a hangover. Dealing with that is going to be challenging enough, but with his arm out of action and his back and hips as bruised as they are, his PT will be fucked. They’re looking at weeks of him needing Michael’s help with everything from dressing to bathing.

That’ll be enough to put anyone in a mood. It’ll make Alex, who also has to juggle all this with his work and yet another shady Government conspiracy - one complete with attempted murder plots - a total nightmare to live with.  
  
Michael is okay with that. He’s okay with any alternative to the ending he very nearly had. _Anything_ is better than that.

He's come to a decision. He trusts Alex. He trusts his love for him.

And he knows how his mind works. There’s no possible way he’s not going to find out the truth about Rosa. Not with his connections, not with the information he has access to, and not with Liz back in town.

Michael has to be the one to tell him. He’s too fragile now, too vulnerable, but when he’s on the mend, when he’s healed, and they’ve dealt with the assholes who did this to him, then Michael will tell him everything.

Alex might hate him for it, but at least it will be on their terms, not someone else’s.

“Stop it.” Alex doesn't open his eyes, mumbling the words against Michael’s neck.

Michael realizes how stiff he is, how uncomfortable that must be for Alex, and makes a concerted effort to uncoil the tension in his body. “Sorry,” he whispers, kissing Alex’s ear. “You wanna head to bed?”

“Want you to stop freaking out,” Alex winces when he shifts, a grimace of pain tightening the skin around his eyes. Michael cherishes the ability to hold him, but his heart is struggling with the visible reminder of how much he is suffering. When he’s awake and looking out at the world with sharp, intense eyes, Alex can carry a bruise with the kind of enviable grace that says ‘you should see the other guy’. There’s something compact and easy about the way he holds himself, even with the prosthesis, that says he knows how to take care of himself.

When he’s relaxed though, sleeping or tired and secure in the knowledge that only Michael can see, there’s a softness to him that makes each and every cut and bruise an abhorrence. There’s a fragility, a brittleness, that is only ever exposed in private moments like this. The Alex in his arms, dark hair soft and falling over his forehead, heavy with drugs and his skin vandalized with the marks of extreme violence, looks far, far too young.

“I’m not freaking out,” Michael protests.

“If I’m too heavy…” Alex’s bandaged arm twitches, his mouth pulls down at the corners. He wants to curl more tightly into Michael’s arms, but can’t. Michael starts drawing little patterns on the exposed skin of his elbow, soothing where he can.

“Please,” he snorts. “You know I can carry you with my mind.” Not that he has to. Michael routinely hauls around scrap metal that weighs more than Alex does. He looks across at the small kitchenette and pulls a face. That’s something else they share, another fucked up trauma response in their brains. Alex can’t eat when he’s stressed, and Michael’s always prioritized booze over food in the past. Cooking in their little kitchen, music on the radio and Alex trying and failing to be helpful… it means so much more to both of them than being just a way to spend time together. It means the certainty of having food in the house, of not going to bed hungry and aching, of not having to choose between sustenance and numbness. It means support, and reassurance, and a gentle nudge to take care of themselves.

Michael screws his eyes shut. That’s gone. Someone came into their home, into the nerve center of their newfound domesticity, and turned that space against them.

They still don’t know if it was a hit or a kidnapping attempt, but all Michael can think about is Jesse Manes sat at their kitchen table and the casual way he threatened to murder his youngest son. Suicide, he said. It would look like a suicide.

Michael spent ten fucking minutes contemplating orange juice. If he’d been any longer, he might’ve come home and found nothing but carnage.

If Alex weren’t so well trained, so well acquainted with violence, he might’ve come back from the store and found his body.

Would they have left him at the kitchen table surrounded by empty pill bottles and the whiskey they save for guests? Would they’ve taken his service weapon out of its lockbox and pressed it into his mouth before pulling the trigger? Maybe they would’ve taken him outside and tied a noose around the porch railings….

“Stop it,” Alex struggles, but he opens his eyes. “Breathe, Michael. Deep breaths.”

Michael presses his face into Alex’s shoulder and chokes on a sob. “Sorry. I’m sorry-“

“Shush, it’s okay. I’m okay.” The way he’s being held in Michael’s arms means he doesn’t have a free hand to stroke his hair like he normally would, but the soft cadence of his voice is familiar and soothing, a life raft in a storm. “We’re gonna be fine,” Alex promises. “I won’t let anything happen to you, I promise.”

“I can’t lose you,” Michael whispers. “I can’t, Alex-“

“I’m not going anywhere,” he insists. “I’m not.”

“You nearly _died_.”

He waits for an answer, a protest, but Alex is asleep again, pulled under by the drugs, a new crease between his brows.

Michael drags in a rough, painful breath. No more fucking cowering. No more crying like a goddamn child. This is it. This is their life now. No matter what they do, no matter how desperately he might want it otherwise, they are going to have to fight for each and every moment of peace.

Alex’s done his bit. Now it’s Michael’s turn.

 

* * *

 

 

Blackburn rocks up shortly after eight with coffee and bagels and a laptop he tells Alex he can access for no more than twenty minutes at a time. “And as for you, ET,” he says, turning to Michael. “We got shit to do.”

Alex freezes while trying to add sugar to his coffee with only one hand. “Todd?” Michael trusts Alex enough to take his cue from him, and doesn’t like the wide, frightened look in his eyes. Anyone else, Alex would be on the defensive, but Michael can see him actively bracing himself for the pain of having to pick between the two of them. If Blackburn reacts badly…

“Oh fuck off, dude,” Blackburn waves a dismissive hand. “Like I give a shit.”

Michael blinks, off guard. “You don’t? You’re not scared of me?” Even Alex had been scared at first, though, in his defense, Michael did throw the contents of their kitchen at him.

Blackburn shakes his head. “I work for a shady military alien hunting splinter cell, so it's not like 'tada, surprise!'. Besides, I’m a sniper, dude. I’ve killed a lot of people. Major Mobility over there-“ he points at Alex, who flips him the bird, the tension draining from his shoulders, “beat four people to death with a frying pan yesterday. Of the people in this room, you are officially the least dangerous.”

Alex, the asshole, cocks his head to one side and gives a thoughtful nod before focusing on his coffee. “He’s got a point.”

“Yeah I do,” Blackburn nods. “But that’s gotta change. You, my friend, are wicked fucking awesome, and you flipped a Jeep with-“ he pauses, frowns, then continues. “What _are_ your superpowers? Can you fly?”

“No flying,” Michael shakes his head.

“Super strength? Bulletproof? Oh! Laser vision?” A crescendo of excitement ultimately ends with slumped shoulders as Michael shakes his head. “Comics gave me expectations, okay?”

That, Michael actually agrees with. “You and me both, man.” He remembers stealing a DC comic from the library and squirreling it away, pouring over the faded, dogeared pages in the middle of the night and dreaming of the invulnerability of Superman. That particular treasure ended up soaked with urine when his meth head foster father had passed out on Michael’s bed and pissed himself in the middle of the night. “I’m telekinetic.”

“Nice!” Blackburn bounces on his heels. “Okay, are we talking Neo from the Matrix telekinetic, or Jedi Knight?”

“Er-“

“If I shoot you,” Blackburn clarifies, “can you stop the bullet?”

“Do not,” Alex has the laptop open and doesn’t even look up from the screen, “shoot my fiancé, Blackburn.”

“It was a hypothetical,” Blackburn says to Alex then leans towards Michael and whispers conspiratorially, “we will totally play with guns later.”

Michael considers taking a step back. Or ten. Not that Blackburn’s enthusiasm isn’t a nice alternative to murder. “Right. Sure. I mean, yeah. I did at the cabin. It was more instinct than anything. Mostly I’ve put all my energy into learning how to control it so no one called the Vatican on my ass.” Again. “It’s tied to emotions, so-“ he shrugs.

Blackburn nods, as if that means something to him, and having conversations about alien powers over breakfast is a perfectly normal way to spend a weekday morning.

“Do you actually have a plan, Lieutenant, or are you just pissing in the dark?” Alex, behind that computer, is not the Alex who slept in Michael’s arms last night. That wall of professionalism is up and Michael knows better than try to pretend it’s not there.

“Damn right I have a plan. You and I are gonna be Yoda and Luke. We will train you in the ways of the Force, young Padawan, because someone out there is trying to kill you guys, and Alex can't go thirty seconds against a fruit fly right now.”

“I don’t need four limbs to kick your ass, you fuck.” There’s no one else Michael has ever heard Alex speak the same way to. Alex is the master of stone cold sass, but there’s something blunt and efficient about the way he and Blackburn bicker that makes him wonder how many of these conversations have developed over radios or while holed up on missions.

Blackburn shakes his head sadly. “I’d say it’s lucky you’re still pretty, but you look like you got facefucked by a combine harvester, so…”

Michael barks out an unwilling laugh and then slaps a hand over his mouth.

“Think that’s funny, do you?” Alex raises his eyebrow over the top of the laptop screen, then winces. “Fuck the both of you,” he grumbles, a twitch of amusement laced in to ease the worry from Michael’s shoulders.

“I’d offer to kiss it better, but Guerin might do a Carrie at the prom and-“ Blackburn mimes stabbing himself, his tongue lolling dramatically.

Michael smirks at him, then rounds the coffee table to the couch and drops a kiss lightly to the broken skin on the bridge of Alex’s nose.

Then he uses his powers to beat Blackburn around the back of the head with a barrage of couch cushions.

Kissing Alex, however gently, doesn’t usually divert his attention from work for more than a few seconds. That’s just as true now as it has been in the past. He spares Michael a soft little smile, then refocuses on Blackburn. “What exactly is it that qualifies you to be anyone’s telekinetic Yoda?”

Blackburn, battling cushions, says, “I’ve seen every sci-fi film ever, and since it’s not exactly a course they teach at MIT I figure that qualifies me for entry level Yoda-ing on principle - umph!” A pair of them collide in unison either side of his head.

“Your call,” Alex says softly, reaching up to brush a stray curl behind Michael’s ear. “Tell him to fuck off.”

Michael is already shaking his head. “I gotta be able to protect us,” he says. “Whatever that takes.”

“This,” Blackburn says, trying and failing to escape projectile pillows, “is gonna be fucking epic!”


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is one of my favorite chapters, but also one I am super nervous about. So. I'll leave this here and then go hide :D
> 
> Chapter warnings: nsfw alien shenanigans

“I want to try something.”

It’s been three days since the attack at the cabin. Three days in which Alex has tried and failed to focus on anything remotely work-related for more than ten minutes at a time.

Flint, of all people, is leading the investigation into who tried to kill him. They’ve shared two terse phone conversations, and Alex plans on double, _triple_ checking every damn thing his brother sends over in his reports.

It makes him almost certain that their father is somehow involved. If anyone can pull something like this off from a black site prison, it’s Jesse fucking Manes.

Alex’s growing frustration and irritation at his failure to control the situation is sidelined by Michael, who skids into the room with a serious expression and the words “Take your shirt off,” on his lips.

“Aren’t you supposed to be practicing?” Alex asks, not putting up a fight when Michael safely stows away the laptop and carefully helps him ease out of his t-shirt.

“We have a theory,” Blackburn says, following Michael into the room.

“Uh oh.”

“Do you trust me?” Michael asks, painfully, earnestly serious.

Alex rolls his eyes. What kind of dumbass question is that?

Micheal kneels before him, the intensity of his concentration etched in the lines furrowed on his brow. He rises on his knees, settled between Alex’s thighs, and places his hands over the healing bullet wound and stab wound respectively.

“I gotta-“ he says apologetically, pressing harder than he ever normally would. “Sorry.”

Alex shakes his head. The pressure is painful, uncomfortably so, but he’s spent the past seventy-two hours in a mostly codeine soaked blur. He can stomach a little discomfort for Michael’s sake.

Blackburn hovers behind the couch, a bottle of acetone in one hand and a towel in another.

Alex waits, patient, fairly sure he knows where this is going, and curious. Michael’s been convinced that his only power is telekinesis, but after some scientific probing from both Alex and Blackburn, they’re no longer so sure. From what Alex can tell, Michael and his siblings have never really talked much about the scope and limitations of their abilities, never feeling safe enough to do so and never wanting to risk the temptation and attracting attention.

Michael’s been evasive for much of the process, wary and on guard a flicker of a shadow in his eyes that call to memory hushed, haunted conversations of his childhood. He likes to make jokes about it, but he does so in the same way Alex will joke about his leg. Taking ownership of pain doesn’t negate its existence.

This is the first time Alex has ever been able to witness Michael actually tapping into his abilities with single-minded purpose. For the most part, it appears to be instinctual and almost effortless, as much a part of him as his heart or lungs.

Now, Alex can only look down in wonder and awe at the otherworldly being that has placed himself at Alex’s feet. Michael is a miracle, and he doesn’t even know it.

There’s so much warmth and love in Alex’s heart that it takes him a minute to realize that it’s rising in his body as well as his mind.

Michael’s eyes fall closed, long lashes fanning across sun-kissed cheeks, his mouth sweet and slightly parted, blissfully, innocently at ease.

And Alex, with all the sudden shock of falling backward into a pool of water, is no longer in his body.

He doesn’t know _where_ he is. Everything is bright. Luminous in a way that should be painful and yet only feels soothing. The more he stares, the more his eyes adjust to the wonderful brilliance surrounding him, he can slowly start to make out the riot of colors dancing within the light.

Contentment and affection blanket him, as warm and gentle as the arms Michael wraps around him on a lazy sunny morning.

 _Michael_. That’s what he’s feeling. That’s who he is surrounded by.

This is Michael. His mind. His heart.

He’s _beautiful_. Alex uses that word a lot. It fits Michael’s boyish smile and brilliant eyes, his playful curls and his bright, tender heart.

It doesn’t do this, _him_ , any justice.

It’s a human word, and for the first time, Alex truly understands that Michael _isn’t_ human.

He’s never been religious, never believed in a higher power, but if Michael’s people have been to Earth before, if they’ve shown themselves like this, Alex can understand why so many people do. Michael has galaxies in his mind and more power in his little finger than the entire human race combined, and Alex can _feel_ it. Feel him. He’s thrown open wide, his soul exposed and embossed with stardust, and he wants to weep in awe of the man before him.

Michael is the glowing bright star in the middle of their solar system, and Alex can feel the love in his own heart pouring from him, strengthening a connection that’s written in the cosmos, strengthening Michael, who beats and pulses with energy.

As abruptly as Alex fell into the light, he’s dumped back into his body, cold and shaking, tears streaming down his face.

Michael, his eyes blown wide, his curls damp and clinging to his forehead, lifts the palm that’s curled over the wound in Alex’s shoulder. With trembling fingers, he peels back the bandage. Alex already knows what he’s going to find.

The wound is gone. Closed as if it were never there in the first place.

Michael scrambles to check the wound on his side. The skin there is just as flawless.

More than that, his ribs no longer scream when he breathes, his head no longer pulses with pain and he can swallow without the memory of hands around his neck.

Michael raises trembling fingers to his face, tracing Alex’s cheeks, his nose, his lips, and though he never quite makes contact skin to skin, Alex can feel his touch down to his bones.

He reaches out, slides his fingers into Michael’s curls, and slams their mouths together.

For a moment, surrounded by the warm brilliance of Michael’s mind, Alex had been perfectly at peace within the universe. He felt safe. Cherished. Adored. He wants that again. He needs it. And maybe Michael does, too. His hands wrap themselves around Alex’s thighs, dragging their bodies closer.

“Oh god, let me leave first!” Blackburn wails behind them as he scrambles for the exit. Alex ignores him. Alex isn’t actually capable of any thought beyond the need to get as close to Michael as he possibly can.

“Off,” Alex demands, reluctantly removing his hands from beloved curls to tug furiously at Michael’s shirt. A button goes flying in his enthusiasm, and Michael starts cursing as he tries to find a way to remove his own pants without untangling himself from Alex’s thighs. “Off off, off, off - _yes_!”

Alex is smart. Alex is wearing sweatpants.

They don’t bother moving to the bedroom. They don’t move from the couch at all. Michael beckons, and Alex follows, and in a heartbeat, he's back inside the bright, brilliant comfort of Michael's mind.

Alex stops being aware of where his body ends and Michael’s begins, the two of them moving together in a dance as old as time, reverent and worshipful. Desperate.

His body is made only of starlight, so lit with effervescent joy he knows he’s floating, only Michael’s arms keeping him grounded.

There’s nothing normal about the way they make love. Nothing _human_. He’s aware - dimly - of Michael in his lap, of being inside him and whimpering as white-hot waves of pleasure race down his spine. He’s more aware of Michael tumbling them both into _his_ mind, mute and helpless in a conversation where Michael has all the words, and all he can do is try desperately to follow the conversation.

He seems to know instinctively which parts of Alex’s mind to touch, to caress, to ruthlessly, brutally manipulate, mental fingers plucking at the strings of Alex’s psyche with the skill of a natural born musician.

Alex’s body is no longer his own, given over to Michael in every way it is possible to give. He’s a willing supplicant, a tool of worship for Michael to use.

He's going to die. He can’t possibly survive this.

Michael finds the part of Alex’s mind that’s devoted purely to pleasure, strokes his fingers across the surface, and Alex is gone.

When he wakes, he’s on the coffee table of all fucking things, boneless and splayed out as Michael moves inside him. It’s not quite a sacrificial altar, but it might as well be. His mind is gone, his body beyond command, and he’s in love with a man who heals with a touch and rearranges the world with a thought.

And Michael, who has so much power, who is so much more than Alex can ever hope to comprehend, sobs. Tears roll down his cheeks as he presses his face into Alex’s neck and chants his name like a prayer and a plea tied together desire. “Please,” he cries, “please, please-“

Alex draws from the same well of determination that kept him conscious on the battlefield while he bled to death, and manages to throw an arm around his shoulders.

He has no memory of climaxing, only the knowledge that he _can’t_ , not again, not without dying, but Michael seems equally lost.

“Michael, _please_.” His tongue is too big for his mouth, the words too heavy, too complicated, but they work.

The next time he wakes up, he does so in stages. His fingers, flexing and stiff, under his command. His toes, curling into cool sheets. A bed. Not their bed, but still something more comfortable than a table.

There’s a heaviness to his head that has nothing to do with his body. His thoughts are his alone, Michael’s presence a cold, faded memory, taking with him all that champagne bubble lightness. It feels quiet. Too quiet. He’s alone, and small and as frightening has it might be to think of someone inside him, controlling parts of him he can’t even access, it was _Michael_. Michael, who he trusts. Who loves him.

It feels like the worst kind of hangover. Like the comedown from a drug and that scary, heavy mix of alcohol and sedatives.

He opens his eyes. Michael’s pale, tear-streaked face is only inches from his own.

“Oh thank fuck,” he breathes, running a hand over Alex’s hair. “Are you okay? Alex? Talk to me, sweetheart.”

“That-“ the word sticks in his mouth. Michael moves beside him, propping him up and supporting him as a rush of cold water soothes his parched mouth. Swallowing hurts again. For different reasons, he thinks. “Happened?”

“Honestly? I have no fucking idea.” Michael’s always had a young face. Sweet, and innocent in so many ways. But his eyes now seem ancient, rich amber trapping mysteries from eons faded from memory.

“You think,” Alex groans. The wounds he started the day with have faded, taking with them all associated pain, but that doesn’t explain why every muscle in his body aches. “You think Grant Green has a wiki page on crazy alien sex stuff?”

Michael sets the bottle of water down and wraps both his arms around Alex. That, more than anything, starts to chase away the darkness lurking at the edges of Alex’s mind. “Don’t even joke about it,” he says, his eyes haunted. “I am so sorry, Alex.”

Alex flaps a useless hand. “S’fine. Not your fault. Thanks for the-“ he flaps his arm again, this time in the direction of his shoulder. “Does this happen to Max every time he does his thing?”

Michael is trembling beside him, distraught in a way Alex has never seen before. “He’s not mentioned it if it does,” he says. “I think… I think it’s you.”

“Pretty sure the only part of me that had any involvement in that was my dick,” Alex says with tired amusement.

“No. I mean. I mean, you love me. You do, right?” Something about the way he asks the question forces Alex to wade stridently through the fog in his head.

“Of course I do. Why would you even ask me that?”

Michael hesitates. “That was. A lot. I never. I didn’t mean for any of that to happen.”

“No complaints here,” Alex murmurs. “I think we scarred Todd for life, though.” It’ll be at least a decade before he’s able to look him in the eye again.

“You were scared. I know you were scared, Alex. I could feel it.”

“Not of you,” Alex says firmly. “It was intense. And yeah, scary. I’ve never had someone inside my head before. But it’s you, Michael. I trust you. Maybe give me a little warning next time, though, yeah?”

“I am never doing that to you again,” Michael says firmly. He presses fractured, hopeless kisses to Alex’s forehead and holds him so tight it adds another ache to the creak of Alex’s bones.

“You just gotta write it down,” Alex can feel his eyelids starting to droop. “Then it’s science, right?”

“That’s not-“

“Practice. You just need practice,” Alex refuses to give in until he’s managed to reassure him. Still-

Something moves at the back of his mind. Not Michael. Or at least not Michael as he was before. It’s slow. Tentative. Careful.

Maybe it _is_ Michael. It’s not like Max or Isobel are going to start poking around in his head.

“Tomorrow,” he pleads. “I can’t. Not now. Tomorrow.”

“Shush, shush, it’s okay,” Michael promises. “You’re okay.”

The presence in his mind moves, brushes a soft hand over frayed nerves, and Alex sinks into a deep, dreamless sleep. 


	8. Chapter 8

There comes a point in everyone’s life where they learn to respond to blatant stares with either embarrassment or defiance. Alex picked the latter sometime after the first adult stared at his bloody face and pointedly remained silent. It’s served him well so far in the Air Force: it’s not an outright provocation, but it’s backed with a confidence that makes it clear he gives very few fucks what you think about him. He’s mostly used to fixing it on the mouthy little fucks who have only just earned their stripes and already think they know more than he does.

He doesn’t mean to use it on Liz, but she’s staring, and he can’t help it.

They’re in the Crashdown, happily hidden away in the booth they occupied so often as children, a burger, fries and a milkshake each.

Alex raises an eyebrow and dunks a fry into his chocolate malt. “Earth to Liz. Anyone in there?”

Liz blinks and shakes off her fugue. “Hi! Hi, sorry. I’m still trying to get my head around the whole -“ she waves a hand in his direction. “It’s weird, right? That they can just put their hands on you and… zap.”

“Little bit,” Alex nods. He woke up this morning feeling like a brand new person, but he’s left Michael looking pathetic and miserable back at the safehouse with Blackburn.

Max had reacted with violent sickness after healing Alex - and Liz, apparently.

Michael didn’t get sick after healing Alex - they still aren’t sure _what_ happened - but just trying to heal a laceration on Blackburn’s arm this morning left him clutching the toilet for half an hour before Alex was finally able to haul him back to bed.

There’s definitely something about Alex, or rather the connection he has with Michael, that makes things different. Just as dramatic. But different.

“How’re you holding up?” Alex hasn’t had a chance to catch his breath in six months and in many ways, it’s been beneficial. Michael’s an alien. Right. Okay. His father’s somehow even more of a fucking monster than he knew. And? Next? Someone’s trying to kill them. Michael’s been inside his brain. He’s been inside _Michael’s_. Alex is well aware that he’s careening towards the next problem, breaks disengaged, and that there’s going to be a point where everything comes crashing down around him.

But. That’s not today. So. Lunch with Liz. Whole likely is still in the _holy fucking shit_ stage of all this.

Her hand moves into the collar of her dress, absently pressing against her skin. “It. I’m. I’m not crazy?” she says helplessly. “That’s about as much as I can really take from all this. This - thing - is actually better than the alternative.”

Alex nods. “Yeah,” he says. “I get that.”

“Max told me what you’ve done for them.” Of course he has. Max Evans would be a fucking terrible undercover operative. Alex is still proud of himself for not losing his shit after that little revelation.

“I will have to talk to you in an official capacity, at some point,” Alex warns her.

She looks serious. Older, and more confident than the girl he remembers from school. Alex probably looks as equally changed to her eyes. “Right. Right. Of course. I’m not going to say anything. Max saved my life.”

Alex believes that. She has no reason to do otherwise. Liz is many things, but she has always protected those in need.

“Did you-“ she leans forward, closing the space between them and whispering - “Max said he healed you once. Did you get like, an echo? From him? Like you could feel him. His emotions.”

Alex frowns. “To be honest, I don’t really know. The few weeks after that happened were kinda intense.” Between his fear for Michael and the exhaustion of the interrogation, Alex probably wouldn’t have been unable to untangle his own thoughts, let alone Max’s. “It’s possible though. Why?”

“He won’t let me kiss him,” she says in a rush, her eyes wide. “He says he’d be taking advantage, that what I think I feel for him is really just what he feels for me. That we should wait, for the handprint to fade.”

“Oh wow.” He’s had the story second hand from Michael. Who has conveniently left out the part where Max is apparently in love with Liz. Alex loves him, he does, but he’s got the emotional depth of a shot glass when it comes to reading the people around him. He thinks Max secretly hates him, for _christsake_. He thinks Isobel only tolerates him. He thinks Alex might not love him anymore after… whatever the fuck that was.

“Is it the same? With you and Michael” Liz asks.

“I don't know,” Alex admits. “When Micahel healed me, it was like…. maybe echo is the right word for it. We felt like the same person. Like we couldn’t get close enough. Er. Literally. It got very NC-17 for a bit.”

“Oooh,” she says, suddenly beaming. “You know, we haven’t talked about boys in like, a decade.”

Alex snorts. “Well, you were kinda preoccupied with saving the world. And I was in another country.”

Her smile softens. “Yeah. I don’t… I don’t even know where to start asking you about that. I heard when you were injured. Maria let me know. I’m sorry. I wanted to email you, or call you, or-“ he reaches out and curls a small hand over his own. “I really wanted to hug you. I didn't want you to be alone.”

“I had Michael,” he says. Maybe if he hadn’t, he would’ve felt her absence more keenly, but then again, maybe not. Neither he, Liz or Maria have done a good job of keeping in touch these last years.

“Still,” she says. “I’m sorry.”

“I’d say you should come over sometime, hang out, but I’m kinda between places right now.” He makes a joke out of it. She doesn’t smile.

“Do I need to be worried about you, Alex?” she asks.

Once, when they were fifteen, one of Kyle’s friends shoved Alex into the lockers after class. Two fractured ribs had collided with unforgiving metal and he’d gone dizzy with pain, in no position to defend himself until Liz arrived on the scene like an avenging angel, book bag swinging. It hadn’t helped in the long run - having to be rescued ‘by a girl’ but Alex had loved her that day as he’d never loved anyone else. The Rosa found out and whatever she did to the poor fuck left him unwilling to even look at Alex again, let alone join in with the others tormenting him. Rosa was always ruthless in her protection of the underdog.

Liz has that same look in her eyes now. Like she’s willing to singlehandedly take on the government and anyone else who might’ve played a part in Alex’s attack.

“No,” Alex laughs, squeezing her hand. Time for a change in subject. “Though there is something you could do for me.”

“Name it!”

“Help me plan a wedding?” he asks. “Michael’s brilliant, but he couldn’t organize a keg stand in a frat house and I’m kinda terrified of what Isobel might have in store.” Isobel is well aware of their current situation, but that’s not stopped her texting Alex with suggestions about color themes. The world could be ending, and she’d still insist everyone turn up for Armageddon in semi-formal attire.

Liz’s smile almost explodes into excitement. “Yes! Oh my god, yes. I can’t believe you’re getting married! I can’t believe you’re getting married to _Guerin_!”

“You’ll stick around, right?” Alex says hopefully. Liz knows the truth about Michael and the others, so Alex doesn’t have to have his guard up around her, and he’s missed her. He’s missed the uncomplicated friendship he had with her.

There’s too much weight between him, Max and Isobel for them to ever be friends. They’re family now, and that means everything, but it’s important Micheal gets to keep something that’s ‘his’, and his siblings are it.

Todd and Carlos are his brothers. He loves them, he’d die for them and he’s already killed for them, but there’s nothing uncomplicated about their relationships. They’re as at ease with each other as anyone can possibly be, but there’s a heaviness and a degree of fucked in the head that they all share.

There’s no innocence, and his relationship with Liz is just that.

“For a while, I think,” Liz says. “I missed this.” She looks around the Crashdown, her expression soft, free of the grief and the hurt it had held the last time he was here with her. “So yeah, maybe I can stick around. For a bit. Kyle says there’s an opening for a biomedical engineer at the hospital.”

“Nice!” Alex grins. Now they’ve left the topic of alien conspiracy behind, he finds his appetite has returned enough for him to refocus on his fries. “They’d be stupid not to bite your hand off.”

“You’re so biased,” Liz chuckles. “You know, this whole secret thing does answer one question.” Liz finishes her fries and moves to steal one of his. Alex, who has spent more meals in mess halls with the unwashed dregs of the US Armed Forces than he has in polite society, has to remind himself that stabbing her in the hand with a fork is not an acceptable response.

“What’s that?”

“Why Michael never went to college. He outscored me in every test. I was convinced he’d be working for NASA or something by now, but-“ she shrugs. “I guess they can’t teach him what he wants to know.”

Alex has to fight to keep the pain from his face. There are very few moments he can think of in the past decade that don’t fill him with regret. All of them center around Michael and the ways in which Alex has failed him.

“I don’t think there’s a professor on the planet smart enough to teach Michael anything at this point,” Alex says. He’s seen Michael’s mind at work, hell, he’s seen inside it. There are few people who can make Alex feel stupid by comparison: Michael is one of them. He’s entire galaxies ahead of anyone else Alex knows. Just watching him work is breathtaking.

There must be something in his expression. Liz lets out a small sigh of wonder. “You really do love him,” and Alex can’t stop the color rushing to his cheeks. There’s something about sitting here with her that makes him feel like a teenager again, caught up in that breathless moment between his first kiss and his first heartbreak. Now there’s no secret, no shame, he wants to sit and tell Liz everything about Michael. He wants to be that dumb kid who was so hopelessly in love with Michael Guerin, and who had no idea of the pain that love would bring them both. “I’m so happy for you,” she says, blinking back tears. “You deserve everything.” Then she chuckles. “You know, Rosa would’ve given him the full-on big sister treatment,” she says.

“Yeah, she would’ve,” Alex grins, remembering Rosa’s arm looped with his own, her head against his shoulder, music washing over them both. She was convinced Alex would find an epic, life-changing romance. She was so sure of it. She’s probably up there now, laughing her ass off. “Poor Michael.”

Liz belts him in the arm. “Poor Michael nothing! Only the best for our Alex.”

“You’d have to go a long fucking way to find better,” Alex says dryly.

When their meals are done, Alex pulls out his wallet only for Liz to flick him with the end of her straw. “Stop. No. You can get the next one.”

Today is the first day Alex has worn his prosthesis since the attack. He takes extra care climbing out of the booth. “Promise there’ll be a next one?”

“Every week,” she says firmly. “We’ve got ten years to catch up on.”

He hesitates. Does he even have any stories from the past decade that are fit for retelling? Nothing he’s ever done in Blackburn’s company, that’s for sure. He makes a mental note to let her take the lead in those conversations.

“It’s a date,” he promises.

He wraps her in a hug and sinks into the warm familiarity of her arms. She feels so much smaller than she ever did when they were younger. He’s the one who has changed, he knows it, and he takes care to be gentle, to be soft.

“Hey, Alex?” Liz asks hesitantly as she steps out of his embrace.

“Yeah?”

“Could you-“ she breaks off, visibly at war with herself. Alex waits, patient, while she gathers her thoughts. “If I’m staying in Roswell, I want to try and… close some chapters. This is going to sound crazy, but,” she looks around, then steps closer. “You’re a hacker, right?”

“Er,” that’s never a good start to any topic of conversation.

“No, I know,” she says quickly. “I know this is a lot to ask, but it’s either you or Kyle, and I don’t want to cause him any drama with his mom.”

“What do you need?”Alex asks, resting his hands on her arms for support as a whole decade of emotion flitters across her face.

“I put in a request for a copy of Rosa’a autopsy,” she says quietly. “I just want to read it. From a scientist’s perspective, you know? If I can look at the drugs that were in her system, then I can understand why she did the things that she did. That makes sense, right?” She looks up at him hopefully.

Alex’s answering smile is pained. “It does, but Liz, you gotta know that she wasn’t what the drugs made her into.”

“I know,” Liz says earnestly. “That’s why I want to see it. To - to draw a line under it all. Only the hospital can’t find a copy of the autopsy, which means I need to talk to the Sherif’s Department, or-“

“Ask your friend the military codebreaker,” Alex concludes.

She smiles awkwardly. “There’s still so much hatred in this town for Rosa,” she says bitterly. “If anyone found out I was asking for her autopsy…”

Alex knows of the circumstances surrounding the shooting that led to Max healing her. He understands her reticence.

“I’ll see what I can do,” he says. “No promises.”

Liz bounces up on her heels to press a kiss to his cheek. “Thank you.”

He returns it with one of her own, dropped to the crown of her head. “Of course.”

 

 


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We're rapidly veering into angst-ville now. Grab your comfort blankets, we're in for a rough few chapters.
> 
> Chapter warnings: the discussion of psychic abilities and the implications that has on consent, mentions of past abuse.

  
There’s no Alex in bed when Michael wakes up, which means there’s fuck all reason to stay there.

He feels like shit. Like cold, condensed, canned shit. On the plus side, he can heal things now. Weighing in massively on the downside, it either leaves him puking up a lung, or results in extremely unsafe for work sexcapades.

Neither option results in a talent that’s all that useful out in the field.

He’s sure as fuck not in a rush to try repeat the process, although he knows he needs to if he's ever going to hope to control it.

He’s not idea how he’ll ever be able to use Alex as a test dummy again, not without breaking out into hives.

Still in his boxers, Michael ventures from the bedroom in search of Alex, only to freeze in the hallway, just behind the half opened door.

Listening in on conversations isn’t something he holds with, but his name catches him off balance.

“You know I like Guerin, dude. You know I do. Fuck, you think I'd let any fucking random throw knives at me with their brain if I didn't?” By this point, he thinks he knows Blackburn well enough to hear the genuine conflict in his voice.

Even Michael can tell he’s trying to be sensitive. That in itself doesn’t sit right. Blackburn and Alex have had some of the loudest and most entertaining arguments Michael has heard in a long time. They’re both blunt as fuck and don’t tiptoe around anything. “Then what's the damn problem?” Alex snaps, firmly on the defensive.

This is none of Michael’s business. He should leave them to it and let them do their thing, safe in the knowledge that in an hour they’ll be back to snarking playfully.

But they’re talking about him, and Michael has lived as long as he has by being paranoid. He waits, sheltered by silence and darkness.

“I just - don’t you think this is all happening too fast?” Blackburn asks.

Michael wishes he could see Alex’s face. “Not really, no,” Alex says. “You didn’t have a problem with him last week, or was that 'I don't give a fuck' all just bullshit?”

“Dude-“ Blackburn sounds pained.

“No. Come on. Tell me the truth. You were happy to jump on board until you learned the truth about him.” Alex has always had the devastating ability to wield his words like weapons. Michael’s been on the receiving end more than once; he knows how sharply he can cut.

“Oh fuck you,” Blackburn shouts. “There’s only one reason I care about what he is, and that’s _you_.”

“You’re the only reason he and I are even together!” Alex yells back. Michael starts, trying and failing to imagine a reality where the two of them haven’t found their way back to one another.

“You think I don’t know that? You think I am not acutely aware of the part I’ve played in all this? I got it, when you guys jumped right into shit. You nearly died, and you’ve been candy fucking hearts for each other for a decade. I can get with _that_ , dude. I can.”

“So what the hell’s changed?”

“You didn’t see what happened the other night,” Blackburn says, the hostility in his voice dropping to something lower. Something afraid.

Unsurprisingly, Alex follows. “I’m sorry,” he says, deflated. “I would never’ve put you in a situation that made you uncomfortable-“

Blackburn snorts dismissively. “You think I care about that? Come on. We're way past that point, dude.“

“Than _what_?” There’s a pleading note to Alex’s voice that strikes Michael deep in his gut. He hates that he’s the cause of any kind of friction between Alex and Blackburn. They bicker and fight more than anyone Michael knows, but there’s always been something affectionate, if not exasperated, at the core of it all. This feels painfully personal and uncomfortably intimate.

“Neither of you were in control that night. And I don’t mean in a ‘yay we’re super horny for each other sexy time’ kinda way, I mean it looked like you were both fucking possessed. The lights were on and nobody was home. _That_ was scary.”

Alex, softly, says, “Yeah,” and the ground drops out from under Michael’s feet.

Blackburn said it looked like they were possessed, and maybe that’s not far from the truth. Michael’s never had anything close to Isobel’s abilities, but since he and Max are able to sense each other and even locate each other, he’s aware that he must possess _some_ kind of psychic ability, even if it’s underdeveloped.

He knows he accidentally pulled Alex into his consciousness, and can remember how some small, lonely part of his mind exploded into being at his presence. He’s always been greedy, always had an insatiable desire to have and to hold Alex as close as physically possible, and they transcended his dreams in every way.

He understands it must’ve been unsettling to be dragged out of his own mind and thrown into Michael’s.

He understands how much more so it must be to be aware of someone rooting around in your own.

Michael’s used to Isobel poking around from time to time. He’s always been able to feel her and has an awareness of a psychic muscle that must exist inside of him.

Alex is human. It is a whole _alien_ concept.

He wanted Alex in his mind. Alex had no choice but to let Michael into his own.

Only Michael isn’t Isobel. He doesn’t know what he’s doing. He doesn’t know where you can and can’t go, what you can and can’t do to someone when you’re sitting in the driver’s seat of their whole being.

And sweet holy fuck, did he veer the car off the road and into a ditch.

Regaining awareness within his own body had been a blessing at the time, at least until that awareness brought with it a cold brutal kick of reality.

He’s been terrified for and by Alex so many fucking times now, but he’s hard pressed to think of a situation more horrifying than the one he woke up to.

Bad enough to find him barely conscious in a pool of blood with four dead bodies around him.

But to open his eyes and find Alex sprawled bonelessly over the coffee table, his eyes rolled so far back into his head only the whites were showing, senseless, motionless, and… and it was a violation, what Michael did to him. Whether he meant to or not. Whether he was in control or not.

Alex had no chance in hell of even comprehending what they were about to do, so how the fuck could he consent to it?

Michael’s always known himself capable of terrible things, but he’s consoled himself with the knowledge that it’s always been in the defense of someone else. To protect. To save. There was nothing altruistic about what he did to Alex.

He found himself drowning in the endless depths of Alex’s love for him, and some unknown, dormant part of his brain exploded into being, grasping onto the light being poured into his soul by the human who loves him so purely.

Yes, he’s capable of terrible things, but this is the first time he’s truly felt monstrous.

Hearing Blackburn express something similar, hearing him voice his own concerns when Alex is too loving and too fucked in the head to recognize the danger…

“He would _never_ hurt me,” Alex says softly, drawing Michael’s attention back to the conversation he’s eavesdropping on.

“Not on purpose,” Blackburn agrees. “He’s fucking devoted to you, dude. I know he loves you. But even he’s the first to admit that they’ve spent twenty years trying to hide and control their abilities. He’s no idea what he’s capable of, and I’m worried that you’re going to get caught in some kind of intergalactic crossfire.”

“He’d never-“ Alex says again, fiercer this time.

Blackburn sighs so loudly Michael can hear it from where he’s hiding. “You know what your problem is?”

“Oh please, do enlighten me,” Alex says bitterly. “I have only the one?”

Blackburn continues as though he’s not heard a word he’s said. “You think hurt has to be intentional, that it has to be as bad as someone beating you bloody and locking you in a cupboard or it doesn’t count. You think if someone hurts you it’s because they mean to, and if they don’t mean it, then you’re just imagining the pain.”

Michael starts to back away. This isn’t a conversation he has any right to overhear. He knows in the bottom of his heart that there are things Alex can talk to Blackburn about that he’ll never say too Michael. Alex wants to protect him, has made it his entire life to do so: he’ll never be able to air those pains now, not knowing how much damage they’ll do to Michael’s heart. It hurts; he wants to be the one to share those pains, to help carry the weight of them, but he can’t begrudge Blackburn’s presence in Alex’s life any more than Alex would begrudge Michael Max and Isobel.

Family is family, and that’s okay.

Alex has someone, and that’s what matters.

He changes slowly, lost in thought, replaying the conversation in his head until he’s circled back to the idea that he’s a fucking danger to Alex if he doesn’t figure out how their connection works.

Maybe they need to try again with Max and Izzy on hand? If Isobel can’t psychically intervene to keep them from spiraling, Max can at least knock him unconscious.

Alex can’t be afraid of him. He can’t ever be afraid of him.

Jesse Manes is gone. They’re supposed to be safe, supposed to be beyond fear.

Dressed, he heads back into the kitchen, carefully making lots of noise in the process to give Alex and Blackburn time to end their conversation.

He apparently doesn’t need to worry. They’re both silent and sat on opposite sides of the living space. Alex has once again taken over the table and is tapping away, deep in concentration. Blackburn is scribbling in the margins of a notebook, jotting down ideas to use in his and Michael’s next alien superpower test run.

“Hey,” he clears his throat, supremely awkward. The tension is enough to cut with a knife.

Alex looks up from behind his laptop and smiles warmly. “Hey. How are you feeling?”

Blackburn pointedly doesn’t look at either of them.

“Better. What you up to?” Please say he’s figured out who tried to kill him so Michael can go kill _them_ and they can start getting their life back on track.

“Digging up the autopsy of an old schoolfriend,” Alex says dryly.

Michael freezes. “Are you joking, or…?”

“No joke,” Alex says ruefully. “I saw Liz at lunch and she’s trying to get some closure on Rosa’s death.” He pauses, frowns, and how can no one hear the frantic pounding of Michael’s heart.

"You went out?" Michael focuses on the small before he can even process the large. 

Alex rolls his eyes. "I had an escort," he promises. "Carlos is now a firm convert to Crashdown milkshakes.'

Okay. Okay, that's something. He wasn't stupid. He wasn't reckless. He didn't just slip out while Michael was sleeping and get himself killed. Which means -

“I have to tell you something,” Michael blurts.

“Sure,” Alex says, back to focusing on the screen. “Give me five to - okay, that’s weird.”

Blackburn beats Michael to ask, “Did you accidentally download clown porn?”

Alex snorts. “No, dipshit. I’m getting no matches for Rosa Ortecho’s OR from either county or the Sherrifs Department, but for some reason, it’s pinging something on the Project Shepherd servers.”

“Alex, wait,” Michael needs to find his feet. He can’t. He can’t fucking move in his panic.

He does the only other thing he can: he reaches out with his mind and throws Alex’s laptop into the wall.

Alex and Blackburn are on their feet in seconds, the sudden sound and violence of the act triggering both their reflexes straight into fight mode.

Michael opens his mouth to apologize, to explain, but ends up bringing his hands to his head instead as an explosion hits the back of his mind and every cell in his body suddenly lights up in panicked fear.

He hits his knees, dimly aware of the world spinning around him, and screams.

“Isobel!”

 


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was an absolute monster to write. Trying to get everyone on the same page without rehashing every single thing from the series OR handwaving everything away is just... ugh. It's just ugh. So yeah, I really hope it works for you guys. 
> 
> Chapter warnings: Micahel is a terrible liar making even more terrible life choices. Alex is a survivor of childhood abuse and has been conditioned to internalize the blame for literally every bad thing that happens in his life. It's an especially fucked up combination. 
> 
> Things are getting bad. They're going to get worse. 
> 
> (side note of a spoilery nature because I know some of you are worried: I am a firm believer in happy endings. Yeah, I'm gonna break these boys and break em bad, but I promise the angst-fluff ratio is still firmly in motion.)

Alex keeps his arms around Michael while Blackburn drives. They put a call in to Carlos, who liaises with what is slowly shaping up to be Project Shepherd’s rapid response unit. There’s no guaranty they'll need heavy firepower, but it’s on call just in case. Alex has the resources available to call in a strike team to his location within ten minutes.

Knowing things are in place should they be required means Alex can put aside the demands of his job and focus all of his attention in the one place it’s needed the most.

Michael’s always been prone to desperate extremes. The years of him pushing Alex away, bitter, angry vitriol hot on his tongue, are thankfully long behind them, but now Alex is on the inside of the fortifications built to protect a very gentle, very sensitive heart, he’s treated to the exact opposite.

Maybe Todd is right? They’ve somehow careened towards a point of intense codependency, and now Michael clings to Alex with the kind of terror that scrapes down his nerves like fingernails on a chalkboard.

Something is wrong. Something is desperately wrong.

Whatever has happened to Isobel has thrown Michael into a complete tailspin. He’s not lost control of his powers again, not since throwing Alex’s laptop into a wall, but he’s also not stopped shaking.

Alex has one arm tucked around his shoulders and his the other hand entwined with Michael’s own. “It’s gonna be okay,” he promises. “We’ll find her, she’s gonna be fine.”

“Take a left,” Michael says, tipping his head back and swallowing another mouthful of acetone.

Blackburn obeys without question.

“Tell me again,” Alex tries to gently prompt him into focus. The only time he’s shown anything close to coherency is when giving directions. It’s frightening to see him pull so deeply into himself. If this is how he looks when he has an episode he’s no idea how Michael handles it so well. All he wants to do is hold him, shake him or kiss him or scream at him until something living returns to his eyes. “She tried to find you when you were missing. Is it the same?”

“Not really,” Michael mutters. “She can direct her thoughts, seek things out. I just get echos. If she’s in trouble.”

It’s fascinating, really. The psychic connection the three of them share. Alex is almost a little envious. As scary as he’d found it being so out of control in his own mind, what must it be like if you _can_ control it? If you can direct your thoughts, reach out and touch the mind of someone you love, someone you miss. What kind of range does it have? Could Michael’ve found him on the other side of the world, when they were both lost and lonely?

“It’s happened before?” Alex asks. Michael nods, short, sharp, severe. Whatever happened, he clearly doesn’t want to talk about it.

Alex feels a stab of guilt. He really doesn’t belong in this. This is personal. Family. And here’s Alex bringing in both Blackburn and all the baggage of Project Shepherd.

Michael’s fingers suddenly tighten around his hand. He squeezes so hard it hurts. “You love me, right?” he asks plaintively. For all that he seems to find it so easy to make grand gestures and statements of their love, Michael still seems so insecure in it. Maybe because Alex _doesn’t_ find it easy. He needs to be better.

“Always,” Alex promises.

Michael’s expression twists into something tortured. “What if-“

“I will love you until we die,” Alex says ferociously. “And then I will love you after that.”

“Up ahead,” Blackburn says, drawing Alex’s attention in time to see Max’s truck skid to a stop. They’re miles out of town, but Alex isn’t surprised to see him. He _is_ surprised to see Liz. So is Micahel, if the way he flinches is an indicator. The number of people who know their secret is ever expanding.

Jumping from the vehicle, they all group in the sandy space on the edge of the road.

“I spoke to Noah, she didn’t come home last night,” Max says, his brows drawn together with worry. He’s never noticed it before, but both Max and Michael bite their bottom lip in the same way when they’re scared.

“Does he-“ Michael starts to ask.

Max shakes his head. “I told him she stayed with you guys, talking about weddings and stuff.” Noah doesn't know the truth about them. Alex has no idea how Isobel's managed to keep her secret and in truth, he's not sure he wants to know. Just thinking about Michael keeping something so well hidden from him makes him feel sick.

“What’s _she_ doing here?” Michael then demands, looking at Liz with an expression completely unlike anything Alex has seen on him in years. It’s unkind, but more than that, it’s outright hostile.

“I just want to help Isobel,” Liz promises, not rising to the bait of Michael’s anger.

“Sure,” Michael sneers.

“Not helping,” Alex says, his fingers curling around Michael’s arm, grounding him, but also ready to do damage control of Michael decides Liz is a threat. “You know where she is?” Alex asks Max, scanning the surrounding area. It’s beautiful, filled with seas of flowers, but there’s no sign of Isobel anywhere.

“Why would she be out here alone?” Liz asks.

“She gets blackouts sometimes,” Max says, closing his eyes and focusing the same way Isobel does.

Alex startles. That’s… actually terrifying. He’s the first to admit that losing time and zoning out is a frightening thing to experience, and much of that comes down to the fact that he has no idea what it is he’s done in that missing time. He’s a danger to everyone when he blacks out for the simple reason that he’s spent years being trained and conditioned to use extreme violence when threatened.

With the kind of abilities Isobel has, who knows what kind of damage she could do if she loses control?

He’s about to ask for more when Max’s head snaps around and he and Michael both set off at a sprint.

“Hey!” Liz shouts after them. She looks at Alex, who isn’t even going to try to keep up.

“Go,” he nods, watching her race after them. She’s no chance of catching up until they stop - they have longer legs and the fear for their sister powering them.

“I’ll get the high ground,” Blackburn says, circling around to the trunk and pulling out a black duffle. Inside will be Bathilda. It’s been years, and Alex still has no idea why Blackburn’s named his MK11 rifle fucking Bathilda.

“Watch your six,” Alex says, mentally grimacing. His pulse is steady, his mind calm. There’s something familiar and comforting about running into the unknown knowing Blackburn literally has his back. Just like old times. All Alex has to do is give a fraction of a nod, and Blackburn will open fire.

He won’t give a fuck that he knows the people he’s firing on.

The unit, _Alex_ , will always come first. First, last, always.

“The fuck is my life?” Alex grumbles. He puts his back to Blackburn and starts to run in the direction of three aliens and his high school best friend.

He used to be a fast runner. He used to be a _really_ fast runner. He probably still holds some of the records from training. Now…. now he’s more of an ambler than a sprinter. The ground looks fairly even, covered with its blanket of wildflowers, but it’s actually rocky as hell. Alex takes his time, unwilling to fuck either his knee or his prosthetic when he doesn’t have to.

It means that when he finally catches up to them, it takes a heartbeat to realize that he’s missed something pretty fucking important.

Surprisingly though, Max is the one shouting, not Michael.

“What the hell were you thinking, Isobel?” he roars, towering over his sister, who looks shockingly fragile from her huddle in Michael’s arms. Alex’d like to say that Max Evans isn’t the kind of man who hits people when he’s angry, certainly not his sister, but experience has taught him that expectations mean fuck all when stacked up against reality.

Michael is currently between Max and the target of his anger and Alex doesn’t care what superpowers Max has, if he makes a move, Alex is breaking his knee. He can heal himself up and calm the fuck down.

Isobel though, for all that she looks so small and frightened, has the same fire in her veins as her brothers. She glares up at him, her pale eyes narrowed to furious slits. “I didn’t have a choice!”

“You always have a damn choice, Isobel! You should’ve talked to me! Talked to Michael!”

“Oh right,” Isobel scoffs. “Interrupt the happy couples. Exactly when was I supposed to talk to you, huh? While you were resurrecting Liz? Or while Michael was playing happy families with the man running the program that wants us dead?”

Michael flinches, his arms loosening around her shoulders. “Whoah, Izzy, wait a second-“

Alex isn’t offended. She’s got every right to be afraid of him, given his position and their shared history.

“So what?” Max demands. “Your solution was to try and make Liz leave town? Why the fuck would you do that?”

Isobel flinches. “I was trying to protect you,” she cries, then turns in Michael’s arms to look at him pleadingly. “Both of you!”

“Isobel,” Liz says gently, “I swear, your secret is safe with me. You don’t need to send me away. You couldn’t, even if you wanted to.” She throws a soft look at Max that does nothing to dampen Isobel’s fear.

Isobel’s expression turns ugly. “It worked last time.”

Several things happen at once and everyone but Michael explodes into an argument, but Michael is the sun Alex orbits, and his attention can never stray far.

He’s silent, tear-streaked, and only has eyes for Alex. There’s a war in his expression, closely followed by resignation. He tightens his arms protectively around Isobel and turns his face away.

“What the hell does Rosa have to do with all this?” Liz’s voice draws Alex back into the fray. Max is white and trembling with fury, but at the fragile thread of panic in Liz’s voice, he turns to her, hand outstretched. She steps back. “ _What does Rosa have to do with this?_ ” She demands again.

Alex kicks himself for zoning out. For missing the start of whatever the fuck this is. When it comes to Michael, he’s blinkered, and once again he’s let it back him into a corner where he doesn’t have the facts he needs to stop the situation from escalating.

What _does_ Rosa have to do with this?

“It wasn’t Isobel that made you destroy my laptop, was it?” Alex doesn’t raise his voice, but Michael hears him with no difficulty. He turns to look at Alex, devastation written in every line of his face. “You didn’t want me to see Rosa’s autopsy, did you? Why not?”

“You found it?” Liz rounds on him, the gears in her mind visibly working overtime. “Did you read it?”

“No,” Alex shakes his head. “I-“

Liz has always been one of the smartest people Alex has ever met. She doesn’t need you to paint a picture for her when she can take a rough outline and add the colors herself. “Why didn’t you want Alex to see Rosa’s autopsy, Michael?” she demands.

Max reaches for her, pleading, “Liz, please-“

“Answer the question, Michael.” Alex doesn’t even recognize the sound of his own voice. He takes a step towards him and dies a little when Isobel tries and fails to push Michael behind her. She looks scared in a way he’s not yet seen from her. So does Max. Scared of him and Liz. Of what they might learn.

Alex is a codebreaker. He lives in a world of puzzles and equations, finds comfort and safety in discovering predictability in the unpredictable. In spotting patterns where they don’t exist to the naked eye.

In the face of Max and Isobel’s fear, a filter falls over his eyes and reveals a line of code that adds context to a pattern he should’ve seen long ago.

“Oh god. Michael, what did you do?”

“I’m so sorry.” It’s not Alex he looks at, it’s Liz. Her hands fly to her mouth but her cry of grief still echos in the vast openness around them.

Max is visibly torn between wanting to comfort Liz and needing to stay close to her family, the devastation on his face matched only by the horror on Isobel’s.

Michael’s crying, open and raw, and Alex can only stare in a detached, surreal sort of numbness.

“It was an accident,” Michael begs. “I swear, they were never supposed to get hurt.”

Because it’s not just Rosa, is it? Three lives were lost that night. Three lives lost and countless others ruined.

“Why? What did she ever do to you?” Liz sobs.

Michael shakes his head frantically. “Nothing! Nothing! She was just… I don’t know.”

“Michael,” Max’s voice is hollowed out and raw. “Don’t do this.”

Michael clutches Isobel, who tries to awkwardly wrap her arm around him, protective and comforting all at once.

“He didn’t mean it,” she says firmly. “Michael would never hurt anyone on purpose.”

Not on purpose, no.

“You staged the crash,” the calm detachment of combat has no place here, but if Alex reaches inside and unlocks his emotions they’re going to come pouring out of him like poison.

“We had no choice,” Max’s voice pleads for understanding. Not from Alex, but from Liz.

“You destroyed her!” Liz screams at him. “You murdered my sister and then you destroyed her!”

He should be doing something.

As a friend, he should be comforting Liz.

As a lover, he should be reaching out to Michael.

As a soldier, he should be assessing the validity of the threat these three truly present.

It’s his job to protect the innocent.

That’s supposed to include Michael.

“I messed up,” Michael tries to explain, his eyes pleading with Alex for understanding. “I ran from your house that day and I wasn’t thinking. They saw something they shouldn’t, and I was scared and I lost control, and-“

“You’re lying.” Alex doesn’t throw the words out as an accusation. They’re a statement, a simple truth. Michael didn’t lose control of his powers and kill three teenage girls. He didn’t even lose control when Alex’s father took a hammer to him and damn near broke every bone in his hand, and he wants Alex to believe that he… that he what?

Michael is a miserable liar. His whole face betrays him, from the wet sheen of misery in hazel eyes to the frightened wobble of his lip. Michael’s not a killer. He’s not a murderer.

“I’m not-“ Michael stammers. “I’m not. Alex, I’m sorry-“

“You don’t lose control! You _never_ lose control!” That passive detachment shatters and Alex suddenly screams the words. But they’re lies, aren’t they? Michael loses control all the time. He’s let his guard down around Alex and now he’s forever sending things flying around the room in excitement or anger. Maybe… maybe that’s what happened back then? Maybe his guard was down and- If what he’s saying is true, if they saw him use his powers…

Of course his fucking guard was down. He’d just put himself between Alex and his abuser and been brutalized for it. That day stands out as the worst day in Alex’s life. He didn’t learn about Rosa until nearly two days after it happened, but he knows it was only hours after Michael left that she died.

Was murdered.

So… so if that’s it, if that’s what happened… Michael, his guard down, and those innocent girls - Rosa - saw him lose control. If he panicked…

He would _never_ have done it on purpose. He’s all spark and bluster now, but Alex knows him. He knows how gentle Michael is, how kind. He was back then, too. Just a lonely boy with nowhere to go but the toolshed of another lonely boy.

The past ten years lay themselves at Alex’s feet.

Michael, once so excited and hopeful about a life outside of Roswell, rotting away in a trailer for ten years…

Not because of Alex, he’d said. Not because of what happened that day.

Only it fucking _is_.

Jesse Manes didn’t traumatize Michael to the point where he shut himself away from the world for a decade.

He traumatized Michael to the point where his trauma manifested in an explosion of violence, and three innocent people died because of it.

He feels dizzy. Sick. How many lives exist in the wreckage of his father’s hatred? Dozens? Hundreds?

While Michael had been bleeding and sobbing on the floor, when Alex had tried so fucking uselessly to do something, _anything_ , his father had touched the blood - Michael’s blood - on his cheek and promised him that when he was done, Alex would wish he’d never been born.

It’s taken ten years, but he’s finally succeeded.


	11. Chapter 11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so, so much for your wonderful words of encouragement (and threats). You make writing even the terrible parts of this story an absolute joy. 
> 
> This week, on who is the biggest drama queen... I'm kidding. Alex has been working towards this breakdown for the past 130k... as ever, I blame Jesse Manes.

Thirteen faces stare up at Alex, silent condemnation written in dead, slack features.

The benefit to being surrounded by highly strung, paranoid covert operatives means it takes him all of five minutes to get his hands on some strong as fuck alcohol. Once it's clear he's not trying to set them up for disciplinary action and really just needs a fucking drink, bottles are thrust at him from every direction.

He pours another glass, skips his meds, and sinks down into the rigid embrace of his chair.

Blackburn raps lightly on his door before letting himself into the office.

“I’ve checked in on everyone,” he reports, standing at the foot of the desk. “I've put a detail on the Ortecho girl. Valenti’s with her now, she's safe.” Alex nods absently. Good. That's good. He'll go see her tomorrow. When his head is on straight. When he's got something of use to share. She’d not said a word to him when he’d dropped her at home: he’d watched through the window as she stepped into her father’s arms and started to sob, and he still has no idea how to even start to make amends for his part in what happened. “I’ve got another unit camped around the perimeter of Max Evan’s house. We don't want to spook the pod squad, but for everyone’s safety-“

“ _Pod squad_?” Alex echos disbelievingly.

“They prefer the word ‘pod’ over ‘egg’,” he shrugs, a primness in his voice that is, frankly, ridiculous given the circumstances.

Fucking pod squad.

Blackburn hesitates. That says more than words ever will. Blackburn _never_ hesitates when it comes to calling Alex on his shit.

“Go on,” Alex says tiredly. “Say it.”

“I wasn't gonna,” he says gently. Furious tears burn the back of Alex’s eyes: is he so pathetic even Blackburn is scared of breaking him?

“Why not?” he asks, a childishness he despises in his voice. “You want to.”

Blackburn shakes his head, his dark brows pulled together in quiet anger. “Not this time, dude. This is fucked up.” He kicks the chair out from in front of Alex’s desk and sinks slowly into the stiff plastic. “How the fuck did we end up here, huh?”

“Long way from Baghdad,” Alex agrees, a watery smile emerging from the depths of his misery.

“Think I fucking preferred it out there,” Blackburn says, helping himself to Alex’s pilfered booze. “If they shot at you, you shot back. Nice and fucking simple, right?” There was nothing simple about Baghdad and they both know it. No mission they have ever undertaken has provided them with the luxury of _simple_. “Now there are aliens.”

Worse. Alien serial killers.

“Michael didn’t kill those girls,” Alex says, more a plea than a statement. “He can’t have done.”

“Then why the hell would he confess?” Blackburn rubs a hand over his tired eyes.

“I don’t know,” Alex admits. “But he’s lying, he has to be.”

“He said it was an accident,” Blackburn points out. “You telling me you can’t live with that? Killing someone by accident is a hell of a lot more forgivable than half the shit we’ve done.”

He’s not wrong. When they take lives, it’s with a clear intention to do just that.

This might not be self-defense, but it’s not intentional.

Only…

“You know what happened that day,” Alex says. “If the girls caught Michael off guard, yeah. I can buy accidental death. I can understand it - I can forgive it. But this-“ he waves a hand at the files on his desk, each one a name and a case number that came up when he accessed Rosa Ortecho’s autopsy. “This isn’t one shitty mistake. Either the person behind this is so out of control they need locking up for their own safety, or they’re a cold-blooded murderer.”

“Alex-“

“It can’t be Michael,” Alex shakes his head and reaches for another drink. “It _can’t_.”

“Then what’s the alternative? If it’s not him, then it’s one of his siblings and he’s covering for them. Doesn’t put you in a better position.”

The poisoned chalice of Alex’s position has never been clearer. He took the job to keep Michael and his siblings safe, but it can’t be at the cost of thirteen lives. It can’t. Put an army between Alex and Michael and he’ll set the whole world on fire to protect him, but put civilians in the crossfire… apparently there _is_ a line he’s not willing to cross. The miraculous return of his morality has bad fucking timing.

Thirteen civilian lives. All high risk, low profile individuals. All innocents who deserved better than the hand fate dealt them.

So that’s the position Alex is in, and the hope that every single death has been accidental doesn’t hold up to the glimmering handprint that blurs across their features. That’s deliberate. It’s calculated. It’s murder.

The handprint might not be Michael’s - it’s not a direct outline and its hard to tell from the autopsy photos - but if it’s not then by process of elimination, it’s either Max or Isobel’s.

Max did say Isobel suffers from blackouts. Maybe she’s the one doing it and she doesn’t even know it?

He can’t imagine Isobel letting Michael take the blame for something she’s done, and he can’t see Max ever letting anyone protect her while he just stood back and watched.

There are too many variables. Too many uncertainties.

The one certainty he _does_ have is that he can’t trust Michael not to lie to him again.

Either he’s a killer and he’s been using Alex, or he’s covering for one. Either way, he doesn’t trust Alex with the truth, and now Alex can’t trust him with it, either.

He’d cried when Alex told Blackburn to drive them all home while he took Liz home. He’d cried and begged Alex not to leave. Alex hadn’t been able to look at him then, and he’s not sure how he’s ever going to manage it in the future. He feels sick just thinking that. 

“I can’t hurt him.” Alex shudders in his seat, a wave of hopelessness washing over him and dragging him out to sea in a current of bitter desperation. “I can’t hurt him, and I can’t lock him up. I can’t lock _any_ of them up, I don’t-“ he leans forward and rests his elbows on the edge of the desk, hiding his face in his hands. “I don’t know what to do.”

No matter what course of action he takes, someone is going to suffer. If he does nothing, someone else is likely going to die. If he does his job, he’s essentially playing judge, jury, and executioner. If it’s not Michael, he’ll be imprisoning or killing his brother or sister. If it _is_ Michael…

Michael will never forgive him for hurting Max or Isobel. He’ll never get over it. He’ll almost certainly try and stop Alex from harming them.

No matter what he does now, that perfect happiness he felt in Michael’s arms is something he’s never going to get to experience again.

The golden glimmer of _family_ glitters on his finger, mocking him with the reminder of a past self so hopeful and naive and in love. He raises his head, runs his fingers over the smooth, warm surface, and tries to take a steadying breath.

He can’t. There’s no oxygen in the room, no life. It’s all consumed by damning flames that flare out of his hopelessness, trapping him in a cyclone of heat and pain, the space between him and the vortex growing smaller and smaller until it’s a band around his ribs, robbing him of even the hope of finding a way out.

The harder it is to breathe, the more he struggles, the wilder his panic grows and _the harder it is to breathe_.

He screws his eyes shut, trying to find a part of himself to center.

When he opens them again, he’s on the floor, his head in Blackburn’s lap and his lungs on fire. They're half under Alex's desk and the stiffness in his limbs tells him they've been there a while.

It’s not the first panic attack he’s ever had. Not by a long shot. It _is_ the first one he’s had in months where he’s not come around in Michael’s arms.

Michael’s an expert at dealing with them now. He knows how to reach Alex when he dissociates and he knows what to do when panic robs him of even basic human function. He’s always so gentle, always so calm, and he’s not a fucking murderer, he can’t be.

“That was dramatic,” Blackburn says, his words calm even if his voice isn’t. What he doesn’t say, what his eyes clearly do, was ‘ _you just scared the shit out of me_ ’.

Alex wants to say something witty in response. That’s how he and Blackburn work. It’s always been how they work.

So naturally, he bursts into tears instead. He _hates_ it. Hates every fucking thing about his own wild, turbulent emotions, but one traumatic brain injury later and it doesn’t matter how well he can hide behind a mask of calm indifference: eventually, he always pays the price. Michael is the only one who has seen him like this and it’s not supposed to matter because Alex is apparently the only one who has seen Michael in a similar state.

Or is that a lie as well? Is it _all_ a lie?

Has his father been right all along? Has Michael been using Alex from the start?

It’d make sense. Look what Alex has done for him. He’s committed treason. He’s tortured and framed his father, he’s blackmailed and manipulated his way into controlling the one operation that endangers Michael and his family… he’s done everything Michael might possibly want, and he’s done it all willingly.

Forget psychic powers, Alex has damned himself and who knows how many others just because a pretty boy once tried to help him. Michael paid a terrible price that day, but Alex has been trying to wipe that red from his ledger every damn day since.

It can’t be a lie. Michael loves him. He _knows_ Michael loves him.

But Michael has been in his head. Alex knows he has. And he knows that while he’s in there, he can do whatever the fuck he likes. He can make Alex _feel_ whatever he likes.

Love is just a chemical process. Who’s to say it can’t be manufactured?

“Oh fuck,” Todd panics, “Oh fuckity fucking - Alex, fuck.” When Alex tries to turn away in mortified shame, he finds himself hauled up into Todd’s arms and awkwardly, aggressively cuddled. “It’s gonna be okay, dude, I promise.” Each whisper of affirmation is followed by a pat on the shoulder that slowly gives way to a full embrace.

Alex said something similar to Michael only that morning. _It’s gonna be okay._

It’s supposed to be. There’s not supposed to be a damn thing they can’t deal with if they stick together.

Alex loves Michael with every broken part of his soul and this morning he’d have died before thinking Michael could ever not feel the same way.

What the fuck is he supposed to do?

Can he trust Michael when Michael has the ability to make him feel whatever the fuck he wants?

“I can take care of it,” Blackburn whispers. “You don’t have to be involved. I can make it quick.”

The smart thing, the thing he’s been trained his entire life to do, would be to kill all three of them. Remove any threat. Remove even the whisper of it.

They’re all a risk, and they’re all involved in thirteen deaths, one way or another. There’s nowhere to lock them up that they won’t escape from unless he’s willing to strip every ounce of humanity from them.

Life imprisonment, or a swift execution?

He knows Blackburn will do it. He’ll do it so Alex doesn’t have to.

“No,” Alex shakes his head. Whatever the truth, he owes it to the seventeen-year-old boy who _was_ innocent when all this started.

He’ll listen, and that’ll be his debt paid. The slate wiped clean.

If Michael is a murderer, Alex will be the one to kill him. He’ll send a monster to hell, and he’ll follow right behind.

 


	12. Chapter 12

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the long gap between updates! I got distracted by aus! I promise, we are now back to our regular schedule. There will be a chapter of Ad Astra tomorrow and then we will be back with Monday to Friday updates of Souls. Thanks for hanging with me!
> 
> That said, I'm hopeful you'll forgive me after this chapter!

“Come on, Michael,” Isobel pleads, holding out a plate of his favorite pancakes. “You gotta eat something.”

Michael Ignores her. It’s easier to focus instead on the wildflowers he can see out the window. They’re caught on a breeze, bright petals dancing in the air. A week ago, he might’ve ambled outside and gathered a bunch. He’s read a few of Izzy’s books on flower arranging out of boredom and he thinks he’s gotten okay at making something pretty out of the materials he gathers. Alex has never complained.

Alex would want chocolate pancakes. Michael’s good at making those as well.

“I’m not hungry,” he says when she shoves the plate right under his nose.

“You’re always hungry,” she says in distress. She's been fluttering around him ever since... using his pain as a distraction from her own fear. “Please, Michael, come on! Alex’ll come around. He can’t be mad at you forever.”

“You _really_ don’t know Alex,” Michael says bitterly. Alex exists in a world of absolutes, and this fucks with just about every boundary he has. He absolutely can be mad forever. It's more a question of how that anger will present itself.

“He’ll understand, you said so-“

“Like Max understands?” It’s a low blow, one that makes her lip wobble in distress.

Surprisingly, Michael’s not worried about Max. He feels guilty, knowing what they did back has had such a profound impact on him, but he’s not worried. The three of them are all they have and that will eventually win out over any hurt and anger. He needs time, but he’ll come back to them both.

Alex, on the other hand…

“Max loves us,” Isobel says stubbornly. “He _will_ come back. Alex too. He loves you.”

“He thinks I’m a murderer, Iz,” he says tiredly. He can’t remember ever being this detached from his emotions. Normally he feels like he’s fighting an impossible battle just to keep a lid on them. This lethargic numbness is as scary as it is welcome. “Even if he somehow manages to get past that - which I doubt he will - he’s taken a bullet for us. Two, actually. To protect our secret. And I’ve been lying to him.”

“Yeah, you have.”

Both Michael and Isobel turn at the sound of Alex’s voice. He's a stealthy sonovabitch when he wants to be, and he has a key. Knowing that doesn't stop the both of them flinching in shock. 

It’s been two days, and the sight of him is still enough to freeze Michael’s heart in his chest. He’s beautiful - always beautiful - but in the way a knife is beautiful. Everything about him radiates the sharp, dangerous edge of someone who has no desire to be touched and will cut you if you try.

“Isobel,” Alex says, “I’d like a word with your brother.”

“Okay,” Isobel says, her voice small. She doesn’t move.

“Alone, please.”

Again, she doesn’t move.

Michael doesn’t believe Alex could ever hurt her, but he’s also well aware that they’re dealing with Major Manes right now, not his fiancé. Assuming he still has a fiancé. Assuming Alex doesn’t ram his ring down Michael’s throat. “It’s okay, Iz,” Michael says, summoning up a weak smile purely for her benefit.

Reluctantly, she squeezes his hand and leaves the room.

Alex doesn’t wait long after the door closes before handing Michael a thick folder.

“What’s this?” He’s expected him to start with Rosa and go from there, not - he pauses and stares at the collection of faces that stare blankly back up at him.

“You know the first three,” Alex says coolly. “The other ten are the men and women murdered by the same alien in the years since.”

Other ten… _no_. Horror robs him of rational, coherent thought. “No, Alex, I didn’t-“

“The killer chose victims whose deaths wouldn’t be investigated. They made a calculated decision to target vulnerable people. So either you’re a sadistic serial killer, or-“

“Alex, _no_! No, god, I swear!” Michael drops the folder and reaches out imploringly, hands, heart, soul extended, grasping for their mirrors in the man before him. He searches eyes that hold all the magic of the cosmos and finds nothing but blank, impenetrable walls. If Alex thinks he did this, if he truly believes Michael capable of cold-blooded murder… “I didn’t know anything about this, I didn’t. I would never, I would _never_ -“

He can’t breathe. This isn’t him. It’s not. And it’s not Isobel. She could never.

A heartbeat passes for eternity, and those walls fall. Implode, more like, vanishing behind a glassy sheen of tears. Gone is the Major, the Airman, and in his place is Michael’s Alex. “I believe you,” he whispers. Simple and neat when nothing about any of this is either.

The lump in Michael’s throat is the same size as the rock Sisyphus pushed up a mountain and equally as inescapable. He tries swallowing it down, tries to find his voice, his breath, and manages only a whimpered exhale of air.

“Maybe it's crazy, but then this whole thing is.” Alex looks around helplessly. “But I believe you. I thought…” he closes his eyes, shakes his head, pushes through whatever thoughts are clouding his path. “I worked myself up into this whole spiral where I’d half convinced myself you were fucking with my head this whole time. That you were this monstrous _thing_. I felt so guilty. And ashamed, and scared.”

Michael can’t stop the tears rolling down his cheeks. He doesn’t even want to try. “I would never do that to you, Alex. Never. Fuck, I’d die before I hurt you, I’d-“

Alex’s hands curl around his arms, holding him fast and silencing his spiral into agonized pleading. “I know! Michael, I know.”

“But-“

“But those things I felt?” He removes one hand from Michael’s shoulder and tugs at the collar of his black tactical vest, peeling away fabric and revealing the glimmering handprint curled lovingly over the place where he’d been shot. “They’re yours, aren’t they? Some of them at least.”

Michael reaches up to press his fingers against exposed skin. It feels warmer than Alex usually does, hot and tender to the touch. There’ll be another one on his opposite side, matching signs of Michael’s touch.

Tenderly, Alex curls his hand under Michael’s jaw and cups his cheek. “And some of the things you’re feeling? There’s probably some of me in there. Echoes, Max calls them. Of our souls. I think maybe we’re both a little too self-destructive, given the circumstances.”

Maybe. Michael doesn’t care. Alex is touching him. Alex doesn’t hate him.

“You believe me.” No one has ever believed anything good about Michael. Not even Max. Not even Isobel. She’s been willing to accept a lie for a decade, comfortable in the knowledge that Michael is capable of killing someone.

Nobody has ever looked at Michael and seen anything worthy of trust. Not until Alex.

Who cringes in guilt. “I didn’t know what to believe at first,” he admits. “There was too much up here,” he gestures to his head. “Took a spectacular panic attack in front of Todd and a significant amount of moonshine to calm me down. I thought I had everything neat and logical in my head, drove over here knowing what I was going to say, how I was going to stay professional and distant, but,” his thumb traces lovingly over the curve of Michael’s cheek, “I saw you, and I knew. You didn’t kill those people. And you didn’t kill Rosa.”

Michael sags, a puppet cut from his strings. “I’m sorry,” he sobs. “I’m so sorry.”

“I know, love,” Alex smiles tearfully. “I know you are. That doesn’t matter anymore, okay? Everything bad that happened between before this minute? Gone. Forgiven. So you and I? We’re gonna sit down, and we’re gonna figure out what’s going on here, and we’re gonna deal with it together, okay?”

“I don’t-“

The expression that settles onto Alex’s face is one Michael knows well. It’s not his work face and it’s not his home face. It’s something in-between and it’s stubborn as fuck. It’s the calm, confident assurance that he’s in control of the situation. It’s the face Michael trusts more than his own sanity.

“Nothing you tell me is going to change anything. I love you. Always. This?” He holds up his hand and shows Michael the ring that’s still on his finger. “Means family, remember? If you tell me Max or Isobel is the killer, you’re still my family. _They_ are still my family. We will figure it out. Okay?”

He can’t speak, but he manages a nod.

Alex takes his hand and gently pulls him to the couch before setting him down amidst the cushions. Perching opposite, he curls his fingers around Micahel's own. “Tell me.”

 


	13. Chapter 13

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> *hides*

Michael wants to talk to Max and Isobel first.

He squeezes Alex’s hand and promises to tell him everything, no details spared, but begs for the chance to speak with them alone. He has a look in his eyes that says he’ll accept whatever answer Alex gives him, even if it’s a refusal, and that alone prompts Alex to act against his training. Again. He’s done seeing fear in Michael’s eyes and he’s done being the cause of it. He's made the decision to trust Michael and he's willing to do what's necessary to prove it.

So Michael and Isobel drive over to Max’s and Alex heads back into town to see Liz.

She's at home, but she's not the one who greets him, Kyle is. His shirt on inside out. 

“She’s in the shower. And this is… exactly what it looks like,” Kyle sighs, his shoulders slumping as he lets Alex into the small living room and takes a seat on the couch. Alex is tempted to call him on it, to get pissed at him for taking advantage of Liz’s grief, but if anything it looks like it might’ve been the other way around. Kyle looks dreadful and is walking like an old man, his back hunched and his movements painfully slow.

“Are you okay?”

Kyle laughs and shakes his head tiredly. “Someone tried to murder my friend in his home and I’ve lied on his medical report to stop my mother from investigating it; I’m sleeping with my ex-girlfriend who is in love with another man, and I think my father was tied up in a secret government conspiracy and also had an affair with said ex’s nineteen-year-old sister - who was apparently murdered by my friend’s alien fiancé. Not really, no, but I’m probably doing better than you.”

How the hell did people think Alex was the dramatic one in their friendship?

“Wait, wait. Back up.” He’s not going to address the comment about Michael until they have that discussion properly, but there’s something far more relevant in what Kyle has said. He’s hinted at it before, at Jim Valenti somehow having some connection to Jesse Manes’s work. Alex can’t say he’s had the time or the energy to really investigate what that might mean. That’s not what strikes him hardest. “You think Rosa and _Jim_ …”

Kyle drags a hand over his face and rubs at his eyes, exhaustion clinging to the dark circles beneath them. “Liz and I were going through some of Rosa’s stuff. Turns out, my dad bought her a bus ticket out of town for the night she died. And wrote some kinda suspect stuff in her year book.”

“How does that lead to them having an affair?” Alex demands. “Jim was a good guy, Kyle.”

“I used to think _your_ dad was a good guy,” Kyle points out. "Turns out, I'm not the best judge of character."

Alex can’t help laughing, though he quickly stops himself when Kyle’s expression becomes pained. “Oh my god, how? The guy used to drive us into the middle of nowhere and leave us there to ‘toughen us up’.”

“Yeah, but we always found our way back, didn’t we? I don’t know, I just never… I’d go home to my mom and dad and things would be good, and I guess I never stopped to think that things were different for you.”

“You’re seriously trying to tell me you didn’t know what was happening?” One of Alex’s greatest - and with hindsight most irrational - fears as a teenager was that every time Jim patched him up or rescued him from the side of the road or let him out of the basement when Jesse was out, he would go home and tell Kyle everything. And Kyle, who had decided he hated Alex as much as his father did, would be laughing.

“I knew he hit you,” Kyle admits. “I just never… I didn’t-“

“Care?” Alex offers when he falls silent.

“No!” Kyle exclaims, “I mean yes. I-“

Alex really isn’t in the mood for anyone’s teenage guilt and in honesty, he’s not even sure how they’ve ended up on the subject, other than perhaps it’s been something Kyle has been wanting to get off his chest for a long time. “Look, either you didn’t see, didn’t care, or thought I deserved it. Either way, it’s ten years behind us and I’ve dealt with a whole lot worse, so-“

Kyle shakes his head, his laugh disbelieving as much as it is amused. “Jesus, Alex, you still know how to go for the jugular, don’t you?”

“Survival trick,” Alex shrugs. “But back to something that actually matters; no way was your dad sleeping with Rosa. He helped people. He tried to help me, he left me the cabin so I’d have someplace safe to come back to.”

Not that the safety he came to cherish survived long after his father found out about it.

“I know he was having an affair with someone,” Kyle says, his chin setting stubbornly, something oddly childish in his expression that Alex can recognize from bitter personal experience. Granted, his came far, far earlier than Kyle’s, but there’s nothing that hurts more than the realization that someone you love isn’t the person you thought they were.

Christ, he’s been bouncing back and forth on that line for the past few days, hasn’t he?

“That doesn’t mean it was Rosa,” replies Alex, patiently. “Being involved in Project Shepherd with my father, on the other hand-“ It doesn’t take a genius to know that someone in law enforcement had to be involved in keeping the details of the alien murders out of the regular autopsy reports, and their dads go way back. They were raised together the same way Alex and Kyle were. If Jesse was brought in as a youth, it makes sense that Jim might’ve been as well.

“My mom’s got some of his letters, ones he wrote before he died. He knew about the alien handprint, he knew about your father’s connection to it. I mean, it makes sense that there might be something there, right? Some reason she doesn’t want me to see them.”

“Your dad died of brain cancer, Kyle,” Alex tries to be gentle. “You’re a doctor, you know what that does to someone’s mind. Maybe she just doesn’t want to upset you?”

“I can’t decide if you’re playing devil’s advocate here, or just being a dick?”

“Bit of both,” Alex says wryly. “Look, if you want, we can find a way to get access to those letters. Either they’ll put your mind at ease, or-“

“They’ll prove my dad was either sleeping with a teenager or part of a secret, alien hunting government death squad.” His eyes are wide, making the bruise-like rings around them look even heavier.

“If we do that, will you be able to sleep again?” he asks.

“Who says I can’t sleep?” Kyle frowns.

Alex snorts. “Dude, the rattling sound I make when I walk has fuck all to do with my leg and everything to do with the literal pharmacy I need to deal with the alphabetized collection of bullshit rattling around my brain. I know sleeping disorders when I see them.”

“I guess it depends what we find,” Kyle admits, sympathy replacing the lethargy in his eyes.

“Then we’ll do it. But I want everyone on the same page first. I’m done being reactive. You, me and Liz are going to sit down with Michael, Max and Isobel and get everything out in the open. No more lies, no more half-truths. The six of us talk, and we figure it out.”

Kyle looks across the room towards the bathroom door. “I don’t think Liz is going to be down with that,” he says softly. “She needs some time.”

“And if I could give it to her, I would,” Alex says. He means it. He hates that no one, not Liz, not Max, not Michael, not any of them, has had time to process anything that’s really happened since Alex came back to Roswell. “But between the SpecOps team who tried to kill me and the possible alien serial killer we have on our hands, time isn’t a luxury any of us can afford.”

“I’m sorry,” Kyle blinks, “alien what now?”

He holds up a hand and nods. “Yeah, I know. Trust me, I know. This is why we need to all talk. And why I need you to convince Liz to come.”

“Why me? Why can’t you? You think because we’re…" his eyes widen, "you do. Damnit. Fine.” He starts muttering to himself under his breath and tugs on the hem of his shirt in annoyance. He finally notices it is inside out just as Alex’s phone rings. He slips out of the room and onto the stairway to take the call.

“Noah?” He likes Noah, he does, but he has no idea how to talk to him in the way he once did, not when he’s so deeply tangled in the mess of his wife’s secrets while the poor bastard is still in the dark. “Is everything okay?”

“ _No? Yes? Honestly? Not sure_.” Noah sounds borderline hysterical. “ _Isobel’s with you and Michael, right?_ ”

“She’s with Michael,” Alex agrees, not wanting to reveal her location and accidentally engineer a scenario where Noah walks in on a conversation he shouldn’t.

“ _Right. Right. Okay, good. That’s good. I’m overreacting, it’s fine._ ”

“Hey, there’s nothing wrong with worrying about someone,” Alex says gently. “I freak out every time Michael goes to the grocery store without me.”

“ _Is that because he buys nothing but hot pockets and beer?_ ” Noah asks, trying to lighten the topic. Alex lets him.

“Something like that,” he says with a chuckle. “Isobel was fine when I saw her, I promise.”

“ _Yeah. Yeah, I know. I just… I found some things of hers; they don’t make any sense and I’m jumping to conclusions, right? My wife’s not actually a drug addict or anything._ ” And this… this is why Alex hates getting involved with family drama. Even his family drama. Fuck, especially his family drama. He’s marrying Michael, which makes Isobel his sister-in-law, which makes Noah his brother-in-law, which makes his headache fucking set for every family gathering they have from here on out. “ _Could you maybe come by the office? I know you’re busy and everything, but I’d just… I’d feel better, if I could show someone and they could tell me I’m not crazy. Or that I am crazy. I - I just need a second opinion on the crazy_.”

Alex hesitates. “I-“ he needs to get everyone sat down and on the same asap and he needs to do it before the end of the day.

 _“Please? I’m freaking out here, man._ ”

He checks his watch. If he leaves now, he can meet Liz and Kyle at Max’s place and still have a good few hours to discuss things before nightfall. “I’ll be there in twenty,” he promises.

 


	14. Chapter 14

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, we're heading into the worst of the pain now. Things are about to get really, really rough. This one was a nightmare to write for multiple reasons.
> 
> I didn't really enjoy the route that Noah went in the series, so while I try to incorporate canon where I can Noah will be a major deviation. 
> 
> Please do check the updated tags. 
> 
> *gentle cuddles*

On a scale of one to ten, with one being 'fine and fucking dandy', and ten being ‘oops I set the world on fire’, Michael’s going for a solid seventeen and a half.

Isobel’s crying and Max is glowering and if today day were any other day, Michael would be feeling a whole lot fucking worse than he actually is. He’s broken his promise to both of them. He’s been selfish. Finally, after years and years, Michael has found something more valuable to him than maintaining a lie crafted for the comfort of his loved ones.

Alex loves him. He _still_ loves him. He knows everything. _Everything_. And his heart is still Michael’s.

More than that, he held Michael’s hand and promised to help him fix the things he’s accidentally broken.

Michael’s always believed in love. He knows, for example, that Max and Isobel love him in their own ways. He knows that Alex loves him.

He’s always thought of it as conditional. A feeling that will evaporate once they see past the facade.

But now Alex knows everything, every dark and fucked up thing Michael has ever done, and he still feels the same way.

It’s hard to feel anything but elation in the face of that dizzying relief, and the things that might once have broken him now hurt but in a way he knows will heal.

Isobel _might_ be able to forgive him both the lie and the theft of its comfort.

Max _might_ be able to forgive him for his failure.

Both of these things are possible because Alex has proved them so.

“I guess… I guess I always knew,” Isobel says desolately. “I Just never -“ she barks out a strained laugh. “Okay, so I brainwashed Liz into leaving town, breaking Max’s heart and Michael encouraged it, I blamed Michael for three murders that I apparently committed - and you both let me - and the three of us collectively fucked everything up by failing to consider how our super racist town would react to us accidentally framing Rosa Ortecho for the accident, thus destroying multiple families and creating a legacy of betrayal and pain that’s still sending out shockwaves ten years later. Anything else? Any other secrets you feel like sharing? Any great, earth-shattering revelations? If we’re doing the whole mea culpa thing, now would be a great time to get everything off your chests!”

Her whole rant is shrill and borderline hysterical, but so very, very Isobel. When she’s forced to face the truth she’ll do so square on and ready to throw punches.

Michael shoves his hands into his pockets. “No. I’m, er, I’m good.”

Max shakes his head, incredulous and almost smiling at the convoluted ridiculousness of the last decade of their lives. “Some family we are, huh? We think we’re doing what’s best for the people we love, and we end up making everything worse.”

“I dunno,” Michael snorts. “My future father-in-law tried to have me vivisected, so this all seems pretty tame.”

“Speaking of Alex,” Isobel says, dabbing a finger under her eye. “Where is he? We need to talk about color schemes.”

“I think there are a few more pressing issues at hand, Isobel,” Max says wryly.

She scoffs and runs a trembling hand over her hair. “Nothing is more important than this wedding, _Max_.”

“As much as I hate to disagree with that,” Michael says, and fuck, _Alex still wants to marry him_ , “but Max’s right. He’s uncovered some…” he shakes his head and takes the cowards way out. “You know what? I’ll let him tell you. He’s bringing Liz and Valenti over any minute.”

Both Isobel and Max flinch violently.

Michael starts to console them but gets no further than speaking his brother’s name before pain explodes behind his eyes.

“ _Alex_!”

Michael screams as he goes down, his mind dragged violently out of his own body and thrown with collision course fury into the panic and pain of Alex’s. Immediately, he feels the throb of the handprints that are seared into Alex’s flesh, the psychic connection between them a battering ram of misfiring electrical impulses.

He can see through Alex’s eyes, feel with his body, but he can’t seem to _move_.

Because Alex can’t. There’s an arm around his neck and a hand splayed across his face and all the ways Michael knows Alex has of escaping such an assault are frozen from his mind. His body is still because someone is holding him in place with a power that makes Michael’s pale in comparison.

“ _Michael_!”

He’s thrown back into his own body just as violently as he was dragged into Alex’s, careening backward into Max, who braces him with strong arms around his chest.

“Hey! Hey, buddy, you okay? Talk to me!” He gives Michael a solid shake, his eyes wide and frightened. 

Michael doesn't care. Alex is in trouble.

“Alex!”

He swore he’ll never willingly violate the privacy of Alex’s mind again. Fuck, he doesn’t know _where_ Alex is, he doesn’t know if he _can_ make the jump when they’re not touching. All he knows is he has to try.

He reaches out, throwing his mind into the infinite cosmos between them, and looks for that one bright point of light in the darkness.

There. _Alex_.

The second he is close, some part of Alex screams for him and with a snap, Michael is back inside his mind.

They aren’t alone. Someone else is fighting to get in. Someone who doesn’t care what damage they do in the process.

“ _How are you fighting me_?” Michael knows that voice. He knows it.

Alex’s mind is as resilient as the rest of him. It has no conscious control over the connection he has with Michael, but it is aware of its presence and is using it as a shield to hide behind. Michael, now he is here, is given no resistance. Even like this, Alex recognizes him as something safe and trusted, and makes the tactical decision to retreat and let Michael take the helm.

Michael, in Alex’s body, shatters every window in the room he is in. The surprise loosens their attacker’s hold on them and with a roll of their shoulders, they throw him down onto the ground.

“You’re not supposed to be here,” Noah says, smiling in a way Michael has never seen him smile before. “Alright, let’s do this the hard way.”

Michael starts to move Alex’s body and realizes in an instant that he’s fucked up. He’s a brawler with no trained combat experience and he depends on instinct and luck to get him through his fights. Alex is entirely the opposite. He’s trained to the point of muscle memory and imprint, his body conditioned to move in ways that compensate for the prosthetic he wears.

The two instincts clash and he ends up on his knees instead.

In all fairness, this is the first time Michael has ever driven another person before.

“This really isn’t my style,” Noah says, wrapping his fist in their hair and hauling them towards his desk. Michael has a smart ass response on Alex’s tongue but never gets the chance to utter it.

The force with which Noah drives them head first into the edge of the desk is enough to crack the wood.

More than that, the willingness to cede control Alex has given him vanishes within the blackness of unconsciousness. Michael goes from awkwardly pulling on the strings of a puppet to grasping at fraying threads and in seconds, Alex is gone and he’s alone in the darkness.

He can’t move and he can’t speak, and its’s only the flickering candlelight that still shines deep, deep, deep in the depths of the darkness, that stops Michael from thinking he’s dead.

 _“I wasn’t going to hurt him_ ,” Noah’s voice rings out. Not from the world beyond Alex’s consciousness, but from within the dark confines of his head. Michael can feel the thick, heavy, tarlike weight of Noah’s presence creeping over every part of Alex’s mind, trapping Michael in a quicksand of control he has no idea how to escape.

Even if he could, he can’t leave Alex alone. Not with Noah, who is apparently as alien as Michael. And who is now top of the fucking list when it comes to figuring out who their mysterious serial killer is.

Not a fucking chance.

“Get your fucking hands off him,” Michael snarls. “Don’t you fucking dare touch him.”

“ _I told you,_ ” Noah says reasonably, “ _I wasn’t planning on hurting him. I just needed to borrow him for a bit_. _You've rather fucked that up for me, Michael._ ”

Where Michael struggled to take control of Alex’s body even with his permission, Noah reaches out tendrils of power and seizes full control.

Alex opens his eyes. There’s blood in both of them.

How hard did Noah hit him? Alex is already recovering from one TBI. What kind of damage has he done?

 _“You’re going to have to go now, Michael_ ,” Noah says. “ _I wouldn’t want you to see this_.”

That’s when Michael realizes Alex and Noah aren’t alone in the room.

“No!” Michael shouts, struggling viciously against Noah’s control.

“ _Michael_!” For a fraction of a second, he wins, and Alex stumbles, and then Isobel’s voice rings out in the distance.

“ _Time to go_ ,” Noah says. “ _I’ll see you soon_.”

“ _Michael_!” Isobel calls his name again.

Michael tries to ignore her. He tries to stay. He tries to wake Alex up. He tries everything.

Noah gives him a solid psychic shove and forces him from Alex’s unguarded mind.

He doesn’t want to go. He fights.

And he loses.

Across town, Michael’s body slumps in Max’s arms.

 

 


	15. Chapter 15

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Time to earn those warnings: violence, blood, mind control and off-screen character death. This is up there with the angstiest stuff I've ever written and the next three chapters will be of a similar tone, so if you need to step away until more is posted, now is a good time to do so. 
> 
> I'll be on tumblr if you need hugs <3

“Base is on high alert,” Blackburn says, ending his call just as Alex drives the into the carpark behind the law firm Noah owns. “Your dickwad of a brother is giving Carlos a migraine, but UNITS 12 and 13 stand ready for deployment.”

“Good.” Alex kills the engine and takes a deep breath. “Put a detail on the Wild Pony,” he says. “I don’t want anyone thinking they can drag Maria into this. Same with the Crashdown.” He’s already got someone keeping an eye on Max’s place and that will be doubled once Liz and Kyle arrive. Alex isn’t taking any chances with anyone’s safety.

Blackburn fires off a message. “Done.” He’s stepped up his game since Alex has taken over the Project. He’s always been the joker, the kid of the unit, but he’s had years to see how Alex supported Nichols and he’s jumped right in here with the same level of dedication. Alex is proud of him, and squeezes his shoulder in gratitude before popping his seatbelt. Blackburn grabs his arm before he can open the door. “Look. Are you doing okay? I mean-“ he trails off, supremely awkward.

Ales doesn’t apologize for crying all over him like some scared kid, mostly because he knows it’ll only piss him off. Instead, he tries to look as reassuring as he can. “I’m okay. Really.”

“And Guerin? You and he are okay?” He doesn’t look like he knows what answer he wants to hear.

“Yeah. I think so.”

He half expects a rehash of their previous argument. Instead, Blackburn nods himself. “You know I got your back, right? No matter what happens with all this alien bullshit. You, Carlos and the Boss are all I’ve got.”

Yeah, Alex knows that. It’s half the reason he’s kept him close. It helps, having a second in command who knows how you work, but with Recon 9 disbanded this has been the one way Alex has been able to bring them back together. Blackburn doesn’t do well unsupervised. In any way. He needs the security Alex and Carlos provide him.

“You could have more, if you wanted,” Alex says gently. “All this is ridiculous, but the people are good. You can be part of it if you want to be.”

Blackburn laughs. “Join the Pod Squad Support Group? I’ll pass, thanks. I trust you, bro, I don’t trust them. Not yet. Not until we know what the deal is with these murders.”

“It’s not Michael,” Alex says with certainty. “I know it’s not. I can work with anything else.”

“It better not be Guerin,” Blackburn snorts. “I’m counting on being Best Man at your wedding as a foolproof way of getting laid.”

“Oh! Best Man, huh? Who says you’re gonna be my Best Man?”

If looks could kill, Alex’d be planted six feet under with by the scowl sent his direction. “What? You gonna give it to Carlos? Fuck that, dude! We have a _connection_!” He gestures between them with wild circles. “We have the sacred bond of foxhole shit bag sharing _and_ we have that time in Panama that-“

“-will never never be spoken of again,” Alex cuts in to remind him.

“As God is my witness,” Blackburn says solemnly, crossing his heart the wrong way. “Come on! Who else have you got who’d be willing to break up a fight between six brawling London drag queens for you? Carlos'd run a fucking mile. Or torch the bar.”

“I mean there’s Kyle…” Alex teases.

“I will shoot him in the face,” Blackburn says seriously.

“Liz?”

Blackburn grins. “Slightly in awe of her so no shooting, but I bet she can’t work as many fucking ET puns into a speech as I can.”

Alex bursts into laughter, something light and warm unearthing itself from the darkness. For a long time, Michael’s been the sole beacon in his world. It’s good to remember he has a life beyond him. A life, and _friends. Family_. Even if they are fucking insane. “That’s it? That’s your sales pitch? Pick me so I can make alien sex jokes at your wedding?”

“ _Yesssss_!”

“Wow.”

“Should I go order my tux now?” Blackburn wiggles his eyebrows and Alex throws open the car door.

“You’re insane,” he laughs, climbing out, that first step always awkwardly painful on his leg. "Actually certifiable."

He shrugs carelessly. “Want me to come with?”

“No, you’ll just freak him out. I won’t be long.” The sooner he’s done with Noah, the sooner they can get to Max’s and start putting together a plan of action.

Blackburn nods and picks up his phone. “I’ll just chill here and crush your Tetris score.”

“In your dreams, dude,” Alex snorts and slams the door shut on Todd’s response.

It’s late Saturday afternoon, so there’s no one in the firm other than Carla, Noah’s assistant. She gives Alex a friendly smile and shows him into Noah’s office.

Noah, who is behind his desk and glaring at a tumbler in his hands, looks up and sighs in relief. “Thanks, Carla. Why do you head home? I’ll lock up.”

Alex gets the feeling that Carla is not someone you need to tell twice when it comes to an early finish on a Satruday. “I’ll do that, thank you. Evening, Mr Bracken. Major Manes.” She closes the office door as she leaves.

“You okay?” Alex asks, remembering how kind Noah had been when delivering the news of Jim’s death. As uncomfortable as this situation is, he can find it within himself to be compassionate. Noah is worried about Isobel: Alex would be far less in control if their positions were reversed.

“Yeah. I think?” Noah stands, circling the desk and heading to a wet bar by the window. “Drink?”

“No. Thank you.” After the mess of the past few days, Alex knows he needs to be more careful with both his meds and what he mixes them with. Now isn’t the time for him to fall apart or to be less attentive to his duties.

“Sure?” Noah pours him one anyway and holds out the glass.

“You said you needed to show me something?” He changes the subject. It's not that he's trying to be rude, but he'll be honest and say his head is a million miles away. Or seven, more accurately. Across town, with Michael and the others/ 

“You’ll think I’m crazy,” Noah says, his smile small and full of self mockery.

“Try me,” Alex chuckles, forcing himself to pay attention. “You might be surprised.”

He tenses when Noah steps behind him, his fucked up brain protesting furiously at the body standing both in his blind spot and so physically close.

 _Noah_ , he tells himself, resisting the urge to move away. _Get it together, Manes. It’s just fucking Noah._

Still standing behind him, Noah reaches around and passes him a glossy photograph.

Alex freezes. How the fuck did Noah get hold of this?  “What the _hell_?” he demands, anger and fear spiking so quickly in his blood that he spins instinctively on his right heel.

Noah kicks the inside of his left knee, throwing him wildly off balance, and coils a strong arm around his throat.

He doesn’t bother trying to avoid it; he can’t, not as unsteady as he is. He reaches for his weapon instead.

An invisible hand snatches it from his grip and strips apart each component in mid air before tossing the parts to separate corners of the room.

Noah and he are a similar size, and Alex should have no problem throwing him off. But he can't move.

 _Alien_ , Alex’s brain provides helpfully. _The_ _alien_.

Alex doesn’t know why he does it: maybe it’s being so close to another alien, or maybe it’s just that he equates safety with Michael. All he does know is that the presence battering against his mind feels like the same one that slipped in after he and Michael connected. It feels wrong. Demanding. Violating.

So he screams for Michael.

Verbally, yes, but mentally as well.

He knows, instinctually, that Michael is a hell of a lot stronger than he is once his powers are thrown into the mix. He feels it when they make love, and he’s felt it that day in the cabin when he forced Alex immobile and destroyed their kitchen. Michael is _powerful_.

Noah is leagues and leagues ahead of him.

It’s not the arm around his throat that steals his breath, but an invisible hand inside his body that tightens and restricts, rapidly turning his vision black around the edges.

Strong, blisteringly hot fingers press against his face, forcing his mind into a tailspin of panic.

This is how those women died. This is how Rosa died.

“Hey!” Blackburn bursts into the office, his weapon drawn. Alex doesn’t even get a chance to shout a warning.

Noah keeps one arm locked around Alex’s neck, using him as a shield. He throws the other one towards Todd, who immediately hits his knees and starts to vomit blood.

“No!”

Noah’s hand presses back over his face, and in an instant, Alex knows he’s going to die.

His heart and his mind cry out as one, desperate for just the brush of Michael’s consciousness against his own before he's overwhelmed.

What he gets is _Michael._ All of him. The connection is shaky, and at first, he isn’t able to maintain it.

He’s in the way, Alex realizes. Noah is fighting for control, and Michael is fighting both him and Alex.

He lets go. He trusts Michael in everything. With everything. He trusts him with his life, and he trusts him with Todd’s.

“How are you fighting me?” Noah demands, throwing sharp barbs of pain against the shimmering red shield Michael draws around his mind, battering against them with a brutality of power that leaves them both struggling to hold their connection.

Alex has had some of the most intensive torture resistance training the military offer. Even before he enlisted, Jesse Manes made damn certain that he’d be able to take any kind of pain the world might throw at him and still get back on his feet.

This is… there are no words for this kind of pain. It feels like someone is digging their fingers into his mind and peeling it apart piece by piece.

The warmth of Michael's presence explodes into a million pinpricks of red light.

Suddenly, Alex has control. Or rather, Michael does.

Noah goes down with a crash. It's a short-lived victory, as Alex follows a second later. He ends up eye level with Todd, who, surrounded by a puddle of his own blood, looks as pale and young and scared as he did that night Alex found him in the desert, waiting to blow his brains out.

If Noah is going to kill him, he _has_ to be able to save Todd. He calls out to Michael, throws everything into that one, desperate plea, and _hopes_.

Sick and trembling and feeling things rattle around in his head that have no reason to be dislodged, Alex can offer no defense when Noah grabs a fist full of hair and hauls him upright. “This really isn’t my style,” he says, and he sounds regretful, genuinely so. 

Todd whispers Alex’s name, then the world explodes with the force of a detonated IED, and everything fades into the darkness.

 


	16. Chapter 16

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm back from vacation and here with some suffering. This chapter was a pain in the ass to write! 
> 
> Thanks so much for your patience. We should be back to our regular schedule now (though the weekend might be a miss, given the holiday. I'll do my best!).

Once, after a nightmare, when Michael had Alex tucked safely into the curve of his arm and his trembling became something faintly like a shiver, he described to Michael what little he remembered of losing his leg.

_Quiet. Like standing in a vacuum. You know the world is still spinning, that people are screaming and things are exploding and there are bullets flying in every direction, but you can’t hear any of it. You can barely feel it. It’s quiet. And disassociated. And you think you might be dead. You think you might want to be._

There have been a lot of moments in Michael’s life that have come close to what Alex has described. This is the first time he’s been completely submerged by it.

He’s aware, dimly, of Isobel holding him against her. Of her arms, and her frightened face, but it’s as though he’s looking up at her from beneath the surface of a lake: distorted and blurry and something like a maybe-dream.

He imagines that she’s calling for him, and he knows he should follow her voice, but instead he turns back into the darkness.

He can’t leave, not without Alex.

Somewhere in the dark, Alex is waiting. He has to be. The alternative isn’t something he can survive.

But the more he looks, the more acutely aware he is of how very, very deep the darkness is. Without a light to guide him, he might be looking for Alex forever. 

The world snaps back into sudden focus.

“Drive faster!” Isobel screams. He nails are unintentionally sharp against his scalp and the lurch of a speeding vehicle rocks them both in the back seat. They’re in Max’s patrol car, and the thud of wheels hitting a hole in the road is what's dragged him back to reality. 

“ _Alex_.” It’s all Michael can say. All he can think about. _Alex, Alex, Alex._

“Michael!” Isobel presses him against her chest, the rapid beat of her heart sickeningly loud against his ear. “Oh my god, you scared the shit out of me!”

“Alex.”

Max looks frantically over his shoulder. “Michael? Is he okay?”

“Eyes on the road!” Isobel snaps before turning her attention back to Michael. “Are you okay? You were having some kind of a fit.”

Michael screws his eyes shut and struggles to sit upright. When he blinks, the sunset orange wash of a dying day greets him through the window. “Where are we?”

“You kept screaming for Alex,” Max says, not taking his eyes off the road. “And Noah. We tried calling both but no one answered. We weren’t-“

“We thought if we got you to Alex you might stop dying,” Isobel cuts in shakily.

“Not dying,” Michael mutters.

That’s a lie; he might be.

He can’t find Alex anywhere.

In the parking lot of the firm, Noah’s car is still parked. There’s no sign of Alex’s Jeep.

You can’t usually open the back door of a patrol car from the inside, but Michael forces his power around the lock and throws the door wide, stumbling out before the vehicle has even come to a full stop.

“Michael, wait!” Max calls after him.

Michael doesn’t wait.

The office is locked.

A second later, it isn’t.

The office is dark.

Michael doesn’t need light to see. He’s running on instinct. Emotion.

 _Terror_.

A storm has hit Noah’s office, and in the center of it, the worst of the wreckage.

It’s not Alex. That’s the first thought that flashes through his head; a shamefully dizzying wave of relief followed hotly by horror.

It’s never really occurred to Michael just how young Todd Blackburn really is. Younger than both Alex and himself, who by turn feel centuries old at a time. Sometimes he has to remind himself that he’s still a few years shy of thirty, not the old man he often feels as though he is. He’s young. Blackburn is younger still. _Was_.

He’s dead. You don’t need Michael’s uncomfortable experience with corpses to know that much.

Collapsing by his side, Michael calls out for his brother, his fingers fumbling with the buttons of Blackburn’s uniform. The skin he reveals is cool, too cool for a human, and surprisingly covered with spiderwebs of scars, older but almost identical to the ones that decorate Alex’s right leg and back. Shrapnel wounds. An ugly, inescapable reminder of the day his whole unit died around him.

He survived that. Maybe not as physically unscathed as he liked to admit, but he survived it. Survived years working with Recon 9. Survived a shitty childhood that reminds Michael painfully of his own.

And he dies here. In a fucking swanky law office in the fanciest part of town, his internal organs liquified by an alien Michael has been fucking blind to for _years_.

No. He's not dead. He can't be dead. Michael can save him. Michael _has to_ save him. 

Trying to heal him feels nothing like healing Alex did. There’s no brilliant sunshine warmth, no beacon in the dark, just an endless void that grasps a hold of his mind and threatens to drown in him swallowing emptiness. Inexperienced and already weak from his fight with Noah, Michael can feel the edges of his control shift and crumble. He claws for stability and finds only nothingness and he _falls_ ….

The world explodes into two bright shards of light; dazzling emerald green and rich royal purple, the rich scents of cedar and cinnamon sharpening the air around him.

Max and Isobel grab hold of his free-falling mind, and drag him unceremoniously back into his body.

Todd is still dead.

“He’s gone, Michael,” Max holds him half in his lap as Isobel strokes his hair with hands that are still trembling. Her face is streaked with tears, her eyes darting around her husband’s office with a frightened sort of confusion that reminds him of when she was very, very small and she’d cry in the children’s home. Back then, Max and Michael would find a way to comfort her. Now, Michael’s empty. He’s got nothing. No strength, no resilience, and no Alex.

Alex would never, not in a million years, leave Todd here willingly.

Noah has him. Noah _took_ him.

“I don’t understand,” Isobel whispers brokenly. “Noah wouldn’t-“ Any questions as to how much of a role she has had to play in the deaths of the other victims become blinding, painfully clear. Michael’s felt first hand how powerful Noah is. Even with Alex’s complete trust and permission, Michael he’d not been even close to strong enough to fight Noah off. His efforts were an inconvenience more than they were a fight. Noah forced his way into Alex’s mind and tore apart anything that stood between him and control. Rendering Alex unconscious had made the job easier, but the uneasy violence of it suggests that he’s more accustomed to subtle, insidious ways of assuming control of his victims.

Of Isobel.

A couple of sleeping pills mixed in with her wine, maybe… take control, use her to commit murder.

Without Alex in the picture, Michael wants to rip Noah’s spine out for violating his sister. For using her and betraying her and hurting her about as completely as it is possible to hurt another living being.

He wants that still. But Alex _is_ in the picture, and all Michael can think about is that the person he loves most in the world is in the hands of a psychotic, mind raping alien serial killer.

All three of them jump, frightened and on edge as the office door bursts open to reveal a frantic Liz and Valenti. Max must’ve called Liz on their way over: they both look winded.

“Oh my god!” Liz’s hands fly to her mouth. She rushes to their side, lending her support to Max and Isobel as they hold Michael tethered to reality.

Valenti falls to his knees besides Todd, trained hands searching for a pulse. When he finds none, he looks around the room frantically. “Where’s Alex?” No one says anything. No one seems to want to say the words aloud. Michael knows he sure as fuck can’t. Valenti all but growls: “Where the fuck is Alex?”

“Noah took him,” Max is the one who finds his voice first. Michael, still trying not to vomit, accepts the small vial of acetone Isobel hands him with trembling fingers. “He’s an alien.”

“He killed them,” Michael finally gasps. “All of them. Rosa…” Liz inhales sharply.

Isobel shakes her head. “No. He wouldn’t. Why would he-“

Max is visibly torn between his need to comfort both of them. His eyes light up in gratitude when Liz shuffles closer then wraps a comforting arm around Isobel’s shoulders.

“He was strong, Iz,” Michael chokes. “You’ve no idea how strong he is.”

“What would he want with Alex?” Valenti shakes his head. He’s brushed his fingers gently over Todd’s wide, staring eyes, closing them forever. “Why take him now?”

“Alex is head of Project Shepherd,” Max points out. “And he was investigating Rosa’s death. Maybe he was trying to get information?”

“It went wrong,” Micheal realizes. “He tried to take control of Alex’s mind, but we’re still connected. Alex could feel it and he called for me. Most humans wouldn’t be able to do that. He should’ve been able to just fuck with his head and get what he wanted, but-“

“You made it hard for him,” Liz follows along. “It looks like there was a fight: if he struggled, alerted Todd…”

It all makes sense. Killing Alex would only bring Project Shepherd down on their heads, but taking control of him? Taking the information he wanted from his mind? That wouldn’t leave witnesses. Alex dissociates sometimes, they all know it. Noah could easily turn that to his advantage. Alex’d be missing a gap in his day with no knowledge of what Noah had done to him.

But it went wrong. There were witnesses, both Michael and Todd. Now Todd is dead and Michael can barely hold himself upright, and whatever plan Noah might’ve had for Alex will be changing with every minute he has him.

“We have to find him,” Michael whispers brokenly.

They’re all nodding, but it’s Liz who raises the question that’s on all their minds. “If Noah has control of Alex, doesn’t that mean he can just walk right into the Project? We need to warn them.”

“And what?” Max demands. “Given them the excuse they need to decide we all need to be put down?”

“Alex would never-“ Valenti starts to say.

“You think they won’t kill him, too?” Max shoots back. “He’s possessed by an alien. An alien with a track record of killing anyone who gets in his way, including Alex’s second in command. They’ll put a bullet in his head and call it housekeeping.”

A flinch reverberates around the room. In Max’s arms, Michael whimpers. The tightening of Max's arms is apologetic. 

“They’re going to find out!” Valenti snaps. “You think trying to hide this from them is going to make them trust you any more? Alex is missing! Either he’s headed for the base, or they can help us find him!”

“Carlos,” Michael says, trying to reach into his pocket for his phone.

“He’s next in line?” Liz asks, helping him.

Michael shakes his head. “No, but he’ll help.”

Recon 9’s giant of a demolition technician is something of a dark horse. He says very little and generally keeps himself to himself, but Alex and Todd are his world.

This will break his heart.

It’ll break _Alex’s_ heart.

Assuming he doesn’t know, that the blank unconsciousness Michael felt in him before being unceremoniously booted from his mind is still in place, how… how the fuck is Michael going to tell him?

He’s too tired, too hurt, too empty to cry, but if he could, he’d be weeping.

“Who’s next in the chain of command?” Max asks him, letting Liz take the phone and search for Carlos’s number.

It’d be funny if it’s not so fucking horrifying.

“Flint Manes.”

 


	17. Chapter 17

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for the screaming and messages of death and doom following the last chapter! It was something that's been planned for a long time now, but it was way harder than expected to write! (RIP Blackburn...)
> 
> This chapter is... confusing. It also deals heavily with mind control and the violations associated. Your standard Jesse Manes warnings are also in place (because let's make everything worse) and a reminder that I am veering well away from the motivations Noah was given in the series, so we are well and truly in the realm of canon divergence now. 
> 
> Thank you again for all your encouragement and support, and thanks especially to Hannah, who I think hates me by now :D

“Polaris. The North Star.” Michael raises an arm so he can point at the brightest spot amongst a thousand pinpricks of light. It’s late enough that the bed of his truck is an island in a darkness lit only by a celestial glow. It should be cold, but it’s not. The world should be filled with the wild noises of the night, but it isn’t. It’s them and only them. They’re alone in the universe. Alone with the stars.

Alex stirs against him, unwilling to remove himself from the comfort of his position. Michael makes an excellent pillow. “I know that one,” he admits.

“Did you know it’s the first classical Cepheid to have a mass determined from its orbit?”

“I don’t think anyone else in our class even knows what a Cepheid is.”

“Back in antiquity, it wasn’t the closest star to celestial north, so navigators would use the entire constellation of Ursa Minor. When it moved closer, it became the Polar star. They called it _scip-steorra_ in Old English and compared it to steadfastness and honor.” The hand that brushes the curve of his cheek is so very tender. This close, Michael’s eyes are bright shards of amber reflecting the heavens above them, and they hold enough love in them to drive a man to the greatest feats of madness. “You’re my North Star, Alex.”

“Michael…” he turns his face into Michael’s shoulder. “You know I have to-“

“If you leave, you’ll lose everything. You know that, right?” Michael’s luminous eyes are far older than the teenage face they rest in. “You’ve not got much to spare; don’t let them take what you have.”

“I’ll still have you,” Alex whispers. “They can’t take that.”

“You’ll have me,” Michael promises. “You’ll always have me. But it’ll hurt. It’ll hurt so much your soul will bleed with it. If you leave, we’ll never have this again.”

Alex turns his face from Michael’s shoulder and looks around the sunrise warmth of their bedroom in the cabin. Their naked skin is warm where they touch one another, still tingling with slowly fading fingerprints. The sheets are cool and clean and fresh and the breeze that makes the fine blue drapes dance joyfully is a welcome balm against summer heat.

“Stay here with me,” Michael begs him. “I can keep us safe. They won’t find us.” His fingers, now crooked and maimed, leave bruises on Alex’s biceps where he clings desperately.

“They? Who are they?”

Agony explodes behind Alex’s eyes and harsh hands grip his face, pressing hard against bone as they reach inside his mind. The warm safety of their bedroom crumbles into dust and bone around them until only Michael’s arms keep him rooted in safety.

There’s a voice in the distance that he can’t quite make out, and the hands in his mind dig in deeper, their grip inescapable. Though Michael holds him, he feels like a flag caught in a hurricane, his mind reduced to flimsy tatters with each vicious tear of those violating fingers.

It’s an agony beyond anything he’s endured before. Beyond anything his father has ever done and beyond war. Beyond comprehension almost, and though his screams reverberate around the darkness, there’s no one to hear him but the shadow of Michael that he clings to.

“Stay, Alex,” Michael pleads, tears rolling down his cheeks. “Stay with me! I won’t let them hurt you. I can make it stop.”

Alex doesn’t need any further prompting. He’s been trained to endure the worst torture imaginable, but that training is limited by human experience and ability. There is no withstanding this. There’s no hope.

Alex gives in to Michael’s plea. He stays.

 

* * *

 

It’s maybe an hour, maybe a hundred, but he whimpers and sobs in Michael’s arms, suspended in the darkness, wrapped up safely in the pale illumination of Michael’s power.

When the voice calls to him again. Michael presses a hand over his mouth, silencing his screams. When the hands try to drag him into a painful light, he closes his other hand over Alex’s eyes, blocking it out. Now Alex knows: he must stay very still and very quiet or he’ll be trapped in that pain again. He must stay in the dark, because only there does he stand any chance of safety.

Still and silent and in the dark, but with the warmth of Michael’s arms a protective wall around him. His power a shield. His presence a guardian.

Still and silent and in the dark.

 

* * *

 

He forgets what the world looks like. He forgets his own face and his own name. He’s slipped more than once, more than a dozen times, his focus fading and those cruel, insidious hands creeping back into his mind. The pain is worse each time. It lasts longer. It takes more. He doesn’t have much left. Only Michael.

Nothing can take Michael’s name from him. Nothing can take the memory of his beloved face.

 

* * *

 

 

_“How long has he been like this?”_

Does he know that voice?

_“Two days.”_

Is that all?

_“He’s no good to me like this. Whatever you did to him, undo it.”_

The unseen shelter of Michael’s arms flickers, falters, and Alex can no longer scream in pain. He can’t make any sound at all. Not a scream, not a cry, not a whimper.

_“You’d need to use one of the others if you want to heal his mind. He’s connected to Guerin somehow; it wasn’t easy.”_

_“I told you what the consequences would be if you failed. I wanted him alive.”_

He knows that voice. He’s sure he knows that voice. It makes this skin crawl in a way the other voice doesn’t. One brings with it a memory of pain, the other with a memory of violation. Both make him try and crawl deeper into the sacred space of Michael’s embrace.

_“He’s alive. Hell, I’m surprised you don’t like him better this way. How many years did you waste trying to beat that smart mouth out of him? Looks to me like I did you a favor: one obedient little soldier, no extra charge. Sure, his brains are scrambled, but you gotta break eggs and all…”_

_“Somewhere in those scrambled brains are the coordinates to your home planet. Unless you’ve suddenly remembered how to navigate, you’re going to need to find a way to dig them out.”_

_“About that: I want to renegotiate our deal. Alex here can open up just as many doors for me as you can. More, actually. He can walk me right on into Caulfield, no questions asked. And if I can’t find the answers I need in his head, poor little Michael will do anything to save him: he’ll get them for me.”_

_“You got it all figured out, don’t you N-13?”_

Michael’s name triggers something inside the wounded shell of his mind.

He knows these voices, knows these men, and he knows he can’t let either of them anywhere near Michael.

Protective fury explodes in the darkness. He wrenches free of the darkness and does all the things he’s not supposed to.

He opens his eyes. He moves. He screams.

Noah reels in surprise, caught off guard by Alex’s sudden attack.

Besides him, his father wears the bland uniform of a military prison. They’re in an interrogation cell. Alex, Noah, and Jesse Manes. There are no guards, and the recording equipment is all switched off.

Alex has the authority to march into any black site he wants now.

Jesse moves faster than Noah, still sharp and ruthless, despite his time behind bars. Alex has awareness, but he doesn’t have control, not enough to be of any use when an arm wraps around his throat and chokes him with ruthless, practiced efficiency.

This has always been a favorite move of his father’s. It doesn’t leave any marks, not ones visible to the naked eye, but it gets the job done quickly. It gets his message across.

While Jesse chokes him, Noah finds his feet.

Helpless, Alex can’t avoid the fingers that press against his face. The world fades into darkness as the breath is stolen from his lungs and his mind is once again ripped apart at the seams.

 

* * *

 

 

“Polaris. The North Star.” Michael raises an arm so he can point at the brightest spot amongst a thousand pinpricks of light. It’s late enough that the bed of his truck is an island in a darkness lit only by a celestial glow. It should be cold, but it’s not. The world should be filled with the wild noises of the night, but it isn’t. It’s them and only them. They’re alone in the universe. Alone with the stars.

Alex stirs against him, unwilling to remove himself from the comfort of his position. Michael makes an excellent pillow. “I know that one,” he admits.

“Did you know it’s the first classical Cepheid to have a mass determined from its orbit?”

“I don’t think anyone else in our class even knows what a Cepheid is.”

“Back in antiquity, it wasn’t the closest star to celestial north, so navigators would use the entire constellation of Ursa Minor. When it moved closer, it became the Polar star. They called it _scip-steorra_ in Old English and compared it to steadfastness and honor.” The hand that brushes the curve of his cheek is so very tender. This close, Michael’s eyes are bright shards of amber reflecting the heavens above them, and they hold enough love in them to drive a man to the greatest feats of madness. “You’re my North Star, Alex.”

“Michael…” he turns his face into Michael’s shoulder. “You know I have to-“

“If you leave, you’ll lose everything. You know that, right?” Michael’s luminous eyes are far older than the teenage face they rest in. “You’ve not got much to spare; don’t let them take what you have.”

“I’ll still have you,” Alex whispers. “They can’t take that.”

“You’ll have me,” Michael promises. “You’ll always have me. But it’ll hurt. It’ll hurt so much your soul will bleed with it. If you leave, we’ll never have this again.”

Michael’s right. He knows he’s right. Alex has left before. Left many times now he thinks.

Right now he’s safe in Michael’s arms, but he feels… insubstantial. Like there is less of himself than there should be. Like he’s lost something he won’t be able to get back.

“Stay,” Michael pleads. “I’ll keep you safe. I won’t let them hurt you.”

Alex curls himself closer and holds on tight. “Okay.”


	18. Chapter 18

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've been building up to this chapter for the best part of 130k so I am insanely nervous. Now we are fully in the realm of AU, we get to dig around with more politics and world-building and other fun things. It's not the h/c I know most people are here for (that's coming, promise!) but I really, really hope you enjoy it.
> 
> Warning: three answers and maybe a million more questions! Also, hi new Manes brother!

Project Shepherd under Alex is nothing like it was under his father. Even with only a few weeks under his belt, Alex has updated many of the small satellite program’s Operations, taking what appeared, at least to Michael, as an outdated witch-hunt to something with the potential to be a fully autonomous program.

It leaves him relieved that it's Alex, who is as compassionate as he is ruthless, who has control of such firepower.

The potential for upheaval, for a return to Jesse Manes’s fucked up way of doing shit, hovers uncomfortably close, lurking in the shadows.

Underlining that is not just one, but two Manes brothers. Flint is something of a known quantity: he’s quiet, like Alex, but more of a follower than a leader; Jackson Manes is an unknown entity entirely. It doesn’t help that while Alex and Flint clearly look more like their mother, Jackson is almost the spitting image of Jesse Manes, from the tips of his dark blond hair to the cold intensity of his pale blue eyes.

“You must be Guerin.” He even sounds like his old man, holding out a hand for Michael to shake and dropping it when it gets him nothing but a blank, disbelieving stare.

Michael can count on one hand the number of times Alex has mentioned Jackson. All he knows is that he’s a good ten years older than his youngest brother, and had left Roswell - and Alex - behind nearly two decades ago. Only, apparently not as far as anyone's thought.

He doesn’t know what to make of seeing him here, now.

Being here without Alex feels like they've jumped off a cliff and are waiting for the splat at the bottom. Any second now, someone’s going to point a finger at them, scream the words ‘alien’ and ‘murderer’ and he’s going to end up back in a tank surrounded by men in lab coats.

Instead, he, Max, Isobel, Liz, and Valenti, stand in the nerve center of Alex’s domain, very small and insignificant in the midst of the controlled chaos around them.

Everyone is looking for Alex, and they have the kind of resources that you can’t hide from forever. They’ll find him. They’ll _save_ him, and then-

Blackburn will still be dead. Cold and in a bodybag, waiting for an autopsy. Alex will still be…

A large, looming body suddenly barrels towards them.

Michael tenses, flinches, and prepares to take the hit he knows he’s owed. Instead, Carlos engulfs him, wrapping biceps the size of Michael’s head around him and pulling him close. It’s what Alex would do if he saw Michael looking as fucked as he probably looks now, and it’s what Blackburn would do if Alex couldn’t. Aside from the Colonel, Alex is all Carlos has left. Michael is Alex’s family, and by the same brothers-in-arms-hell-or-high-water mentality, that makes Michael Carlos’s family. “We’ll find him,” he says, his chin practically on top of Michael’s head. “And we will kill the person who did this.”

Behind him, Michael’s painfully aware of Isobel’s presence. She looks… well, she looks like she did that night in the desert: wide-eyed and traumatized. Caring for her when she blacks out has always fallen to Max, but it’s been years since the last time it happened. The experience Michael has now comes from Alex, and it’s just as painful to see that oblivion on his sister’s face as it is his fiancé’s. It makes him feel helpless. Even more so than he already does.

It’s Valenti who comes to the rescue. He knows the Manes brothers better than anyone, and with Flint now acting CO it makes him their unofficial spokesman.

“I know you have a medical facility,” Valenti says. “I need somewhere quiet I can get Isobel settled.”

Flint nods. “Of course. Sarge, you mind?” He’s more tactful than Alex, that’s for sure. He probably has to be with Carlos looking as enraged as he does.

“Sir,” the big man says, only a hint of distrust in his voice. Blackburn would be climbing the walls… Michael swallows back a wave of nausea. “Ma’am, if you’ll come with me?” They know Carlos better than they know anyone else, but Isobel still makes a small sound of distress and clutches tightly at Max’s arm.

_Nice one, Michael. Bring your traumatized sister to a government black site and suggest she hang out with a doctor in a lab…_

Max looks stricken, torn between the need to protect Isobel and comfort Michael. “Go,” Michael says to him.

Liz touches his elbow and smiles up at him encouragingly. “I’ll stay with Michael,” she promises.

“I won’t let either of you out of my sight,” Valenti swears. "But Liz, I could do with your help."

"I'll be fine," Michael promises. "Go take care of Isobel."

Reluctantly, they all follow Carlos.

They’re not being very subtle, but there’s no chance in hell of them being able to keep up the lie Alex has crafted to protect them. It’s one thing to claim that Jesse Manes only targeted them because of their association with Alex; it’s a little harder to sell that lie when Isobel ends up married to an alien serial killer. Michael is painfully aware that he’s trusting in Alex’s ability to contain the information - in him still being alive - and he’s gambling with both of his siblings’ lives.

That’s how he ends up looking Jackson Manes dead in the eye.

“Can you find him?” Jackson asks, no hint of accommodation for any kind of lie. His sharp gaze says he knows exactly what Michael is. The fact that he’s not in a cell right now says… he’s not sure what it says, other than maybe -  _maybe -_  Alex’s brothers don’t hate him as much as he seems to think they do.

Michael gambles. Everything.

“No,” he says. “I’ve tried. It’s like…” it’s like he’s gone. It’s like he’s dead. “This isn’t my area of expertise,” he admits, “but when I’ve reached for him in the past, he’s been whole. Vibrant. Now it’s more like… whispers. Shadows.”

The three of them walk side by side towards Alex’s office. “Does distance make a difference?” Flint asks.

Michael shakes his head. “It didn’t when Noah attacked him. We were on other sides of town, but the second he called for me, I was right there. I didn’t lose the connection until he knocked Alex out.”

“So he’s keeping him unconscious somehow,” Flint assumes. “He can’t keep that up indefinitely, he’s not that strong.”

Jackson shakes his head. “He’s made thirteen kills in the field,” he says. “He’s that strong.”

“Strong enough to make a move like this?” Flint demands. “Kidnapping Alex? He’s gotta know what’ll happen. What they’ll do-“

“Wait. Wait.” Michael finds himself coming to an abrupt stop in the doorway to the small, neatly kept space Alex spends most of his working day in. “What the fuck are you talking about? You _knew_ Noah was an alien? Was a _serial killer_?” If they know, Jesse Manes must also know. There’s not a chance in hell he’d let an alien like Noah, a _threat_ like Noah, remain free and unchecked. Not unless-

The two brothers share an uncertain glance.

Jackson shakes his head. “No.”

“He’s got a right to know,” Flint pushes.

Big Brother Manes has daddy’s eyes in every way possible. “He’s got no damn rights.”

“Alex would-“

“Alex shouldn’t be involved with any of this,” Jackson snarls. “You had _one goddamn job_ , Flint: keep him out of it.”

Flint squares his shoulders and raises his chin in defiance. “How the hell was I supposed to know he’d enlist? He hated every damn thing about the Air Force right up until he shipped off, and-“

“Can you shelve your domestic for five fucking seconds,” Michael interrupts, “and tell me what the fuck you’re talking about?”

He's still reeling from the revelation about Noah, and apparently that's not even half the fucking story...

Jackson crosses his arms. He’s got a good three inches on Flint and the posture that says he knows how to use that to his advantage. Michael knows how well Alex can fight now, and he can take an educated guess at how well he could fight before his injury: he’s got no desire to see how either of his brothers stack up in comparison.

“Don’t be fucking stupid,” Jackson snaps.

Flint narrows his eyes in a way Michael has seen Alex do a hundred times. “This is my operation now: you don’t get to make that call.”

“Fine,” Jackson rolls his eyes with a sneer. “Just don’t expect me to stand between you and dad when shit goes sideways.”

To both of their surprise, Flint actually snorts. “Trust me, next time I see dad, I’m not gonna be the one who needs protecting.” Michael considers him carefully: maybe they do have an ally in Flint after all? “Project Shepherd,” Flint turns to address Michael, “the project Alex is head of, has divisions across the country.” Michael nods. He knows that. Flint continues, “But overall, it’s one of more than a dozen operations. You know he got the job through Colonel Nichols? It’s because he’s qualified for it, more than qualified, but there’s a whole lot more going on than I think even Alex knows.”

He does know Alex has barely scratched the surface of the project files, tied up with both assassination attempts and political shitstorms.

Jackson, apparently having decided that since they’re telling Michael, he might as well make sure they tell it the way _he_ wants it to be told, adds, “All he had to do was stay in his damn lane. Project Shepherd handles everything relating to the Roswell crash in ’47 and has R&D sites nationwide, but that isn’t the only incident on record. There are multiple Projects, dozens of divisions, hundreds of sites, all dedicated to the control and study of alien life. They all fall under the bracket of Operation Andromeda. Nichols is one of five Operational Control Officers based out of Washington. This-“ he waves a hand around them to indicate the site, “and Alex, are a very small part of a very big machine.”

“A lot of people were happy when our father was arrested,” Flint says quietly. “His ideas were… controversial. Not everyone was excited to see another Manes take the helm. There’s been a lot of departmental clashes over the past decade. No one can decide what direction we should be headed in, and it shifts every five minutes with the political tides...”

Michael doesn’t need them to spell it out for him. “The men who tried to have Alex killed-“

“They weren’t trying to kill him,” Jackson scowls. “They were trying to incapacitate him so another Officer could be appointed.”

“And you know this because…”

He doesn’t need that spelling out, either.

Holy shit. _Holy shit_. What the fuck is _wrong_ with Alex’s whole goddamn family?

“They were my men,” Jackson confirms. “Who knew baby brother had it in him?” There’s a twisted sort of pride in his expression and hands up, every single one of them are fucked in the head. It’s a miracle Alex is in any way close to sane.

“Okay, so, recap,” Michael’s mind is fucking spinning. “The big, terrifying alien hunting BlackOp is actually a billion times bigger than Alex and I knew; you are what, part of another division?”

Jackson nods. “We’re more… proactive, shall we say. Project Shepherd is more focused on R&D which, can’t do anything with out it, but it’s my guys who take that data and implement it.”

“Right. And you had your own brother attacked because-“

“My boss is an asshole,” Jackson shrugs. “And Alex is fucking an alien, so… conflict of interests.”

“Why am I not in a cage right now?” Michael asks quietly. If they know, have _always_ known… if this thing is so much bigger than Jesse Manes…

“Honestly?” Jackson asks. Michael nods. “You make an interesting sociology project, but that’s about it. You and your siblings have limited abilities and nothing to offer us that we haven’t been able to gain from the subjects we have in captivity. N-13 - Noah, you know him as - was on the ground and could deal with you if you became a threat, but for the most part, we were happy enough to observe your lives from a distance.”

Michael still has nightmares about being in that tank, but he feels more of a lab rat now than he ever did then. They've been watching? How close, how long, how-

“Your father-“

“Is a homophobic prick who lost his goddamn sanity and abused his authority to further a personal agenda that wasn’t inline with the overall mission objectives,” Jackson says.

Michael wants to ask what the fuck that even _is_ , but his head is stuck on something else Jackson said.

“Subjects in captivity?” he feels sick just saying those words. “You have… there are other aliens?”

If Noah survived the crash, then maybe… maybe more, maybe someone who knows him. _Maybe_ -

If either of them realize how monumental this is for Michael, there’s no recognition of such. Jackson frowns, thinking. “There’s still eighty odd in Caulfield - that one is in Alex’s jurisdiction, so Flint can pull up the details-“ Flint nods absently. Carelessly. Both of them. “They’re from the Roswell crash. Overall, I think there’s maybe three or four thousand. They’re not all the same species, but-”

Michael’s knees give out.

Three or four _thousand_ …

That’s a small fucking town. That’s… _oh god_.

Whatever part Alex’s family play in all this, however big, however far reaching, the politics and the details stop mattering.

After a lifetime of believing themselves truly alone on this fucking planet, of being lost in the dark, someone finally turns on the light.


	19. Chapter 19

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Long-time, no update. I'm sorry! I have lots of excuses, none of which change the fact that I fail epically, and I am sorry! 
> 
> Thank you so much to everyone who has been so patient in waiting for this update! I promise the next chapter will be the epic reunion (and so many cuddles...)

“You’ve got questions.”

Jackson Manes is a Grade A Dick. Not in the way Valenti is a dick, or Max is a dick, or even the way Alex is a dick - Michael loves him, but he’s a _dick_. He’s a dick the way his old man is a dick. The worst kind of dick. The dickiest of fucking di-

Isobel's hand slides into his own. She’s been crying, and that alone is a good enough reason for Michael to raze the fucking universe. He has always, will always, do stupid things when the people he loves cry. Stupid, necessary things.

“Noah,” she says, looking up at Jackson Manes, her sharp jaw trembling. “Tell me about my husband.”

They’re in one of the rec rooms. Something furnished well enough to cater to the bigwigs who steam through - or who are supposed to now Alex is in charge. The seats are comfortable and there’s a small kitchenette off to one side. There are vending machines against the wall. None of them are allowed to leave, so the idea of being held in a government facility with all you can eat snacks on hand is the kind of funny Michael knows only he appreciates. Alex would too, if he were here. 

Alex would be going apeshit if he were here.

Jackson crosses his arms, his shoulder square. It’s a stance Michael knows like breathing, one Jackson's likely learned from his brother.

Or rather, Alex has learned from him. Fuck, this dickwart is gonna be his brother-in-law…

“N-13,” Jackson says slowly. “One of our more complicated experiments.”

“My husband is not an experiment!” Isobel snaps. Across the room, Liz and Kyle flank Max. They’re probably the only reason he’s not in Jackson’s face, demanding answers and refusing to let Isobel fight her own battles.

“Not a very good one,” Jackson admits. “He entered the field a little before my time, but from what I can tell he’s fucked all of us over.”

“Why would he take Alex?” Liz asks.

“He wants to go home,” Jackson says simply. “Alex is the key to that.”

_Bullshit he is_ : Alex knew nothing about aliens a year ago. “Alex doesn’t-“

“I'll tell you what you wanna know,” Jackson says, taking a rooted stance in the center of the room. “ _If_ you can land a hit.”

“You want me to hit you?” Michael asks in disbelief. He's not gonna get any complaints from Michael, not when he's standing there with the same cold smirk as his father.

“I want you to try,” Jackson taunts.

“Michael,” Max warns him. Michael spares him a short, sharp nod. He knows what Alex’s fucknut of a brother is doing: he’s trying to gauge Michael’s strength. Fine. Michael has no intention of flexing every muscle he has.

But a _little_  flex? A small, baby one?

Yeah. Michael can do that. He's not thrown down in a fight for a long time: it's not too much to ask him to take a swing at the asshole playing with his family's lives. He curls his hand into a fist and shifts into the balls of his feet.

“Ah, no,” Jackson holds up a palm and shakes his head. “I wanna see your special skills.”

“Why would I wanna show GI Joe my alien superpowers?”

“You show me yours, I'll show you mine.’ Jackson grins and flicks his wrist, and Michael is thrown back across the room.

Every light in the room explodes before Michael even hits the ground. He’s dizzy enough for it to take a second before he realizes Isobel has raced across the room and planted herself in front of Michael, hands trembling but still extended in a warning. “Iz-“ sweet fucking Santa, his head hurts. How hard did Jackson throw him? _How_ did Jackson throw him? Christ, he better not be an alien as well...

“It's okay,” Isobel tries to assure him.

Beyond her, lightening crackling up his arms and turning the air static, Max stands like something out of a fucking superhero movie.

“So much for not showing our hand,” Michael grumbles as power rolls off his brother in waves. He climbs onto his knees, only for Liz and Valenti to grab one of his arms each and stedy him. Christ, they’re a merry fucking band, aren’t they?

He wishes Alex were here. Alex would’ve shot someone by now and Michael would feel a whole lot fucking better.

“What the hell are you?” Max demands. Emergency power boots up and turns the room an easy blue-green. Mood lighting for a showdown: Michael’s life is a fucking joke.

As quickly as he tossed Michael across the room, Jackson holds up his hands. “Easy, easy!” He tries - and fails _because he’s a dick_ \- to look unthreatening. “I’m gonna just…” he carefully, _slowly_ , reached up and unfastens a metal cuff from around his wrist. “I told you: our thing is R&R. We’ve developed some pretty cool stuff.”

“You’ve reverse-engineered telekinetic energy?” Liz’s frown says a whole lot more than the curiosity in her voice.

“And how many aliens did you dissect to manage that?” Michael feels his hackles rising. Jackson isn’t wearing the cuff: Michael can take him. His ribs might be broken, but he can fucking take him…

“Eighty-two,” Jackson replies. His voice is level enough that the matter-of-fact callousness almost sails right over Michael’s head, at least until the white noise sets in.

Eighty-two. _Eighty-two_. Innocent beings. His people. God, maybe his _family_. They don’t know how their powers work, they don’t know if there’s a genetic makeup to any of it. Eighty-two people died for one shiny little toy. For a fucking science project…

“Oh my god,” Liz presses a hand to her mouth.

“We had a directive.” Jackson’s tone isn’t defensive, but his posture is.

Eighty-two. Just for this. For _nothing_.

“You’re monsters,” Isobel hisses. “All of you!”

“We’re _desperate_ ,” Jackson protests. “You don’t understand what’s at stake here, what-“

“We understand enough.” Michael has never been afraid of Max before: he’s never had cause. He’s always feared Max’s apathy far more than he’s feared his rage. Now, he looks at his brother and sees, perhaps for the first time, what they might really be.

Max is not someone you dissect in a lab. He’s not a victim.

He’s taken a human life, and he looks capable of doing so again.

He and Isobel both.

_Fuck that._

He steps forward. Jackson hits the wall with a crack, pressure forcing the air from his lungs. He pushes harder, feels bones and muscle strain against him. It’d be so easy to break him. To turn him into fucking jelly, a bloody mess on the wall...

Michael’s been practicing. All those hours of working with Blackburn are-

He takes a breath and closes down the pain those memories bring. He doesn’t have many friends: he counts Todd as one of the few. Or he did. But if Todd were here right now, things would be a whole lot bloodier for all of them. He wouldn’t care about Michael, Max or Isobel. He wouldn’t care about eighty-two murdered aliens. He’d only care about Alex.

Would he do what Jackson has done if Alex ordered those deaths? Would he cut Michael’s family to pieces? Would he-

No. He wouldn’t. Alex would never ask him to. Alex would burn this whole fucking place to the ground. He’d do it to keep Michael safe. He’d do it because it’s right.

He lets Alex’s brother fall to his knees.

He needs the curl of strong fingers around his own. He needs the solid, unflappable presence of Alex at his side. He can do anything, _survive_ anything, when Alex is with him.

Even here, in a place that should be filled with terror, with people who embody every awful nightmare of humanity he’s ever had, he doesn’t feel as afraid as he knows he should. For all that Jackson represents the ‘more’ that Project Shepherd is part of, this building and these people are Alex’s. He can feel Alex in the air with him, and if he was only here…

“You’ve been practicing,” Jackson wheezes. “Good. That’s good.”

Before Michael can tell him exactly where he can shove his bullshit, Carlos crashes into the room. Six men and women follow on his tail, each of them armed and suited up, ready for a fucking smackdown.

He doesn’t need to hear Isobel’s sharp inhalation to know what’s coming next.

“You found him,” Michael feels something in his chest fracture. Alex is alive. He _knows_ he’s alive. If they’ve found him, they can bring him back here, Max can heal him up, and Michael can have him and hold him and keep him safe.

Carlos nods, his expression grim. “We got a call from Staff Sargeant Manes,” he says.

“Oh, that’s not good,” Jackson breathes. He’s just about made it to his feet and looks shaken by more than just Michael’s outburst.

“Isn’t he in jail?” Valenti demands.

“He’s in worse than jail,” Jackson replies. “And if he’s got access to a phone, then my guess is he’s no longer where he’s supposed to be.”

“Is that why Noah took Alex? Because he’d have the authority to access your father?” There’s no longer lightening dancing up Max’s arms, but he still looks like a stormcloud waiting to unleash destruction. “Why would he work with him?”

“I don’t care why,” Michael strides forward. He knows he and Carlos are of one mind: find Alex. Everything else can wait. He'll deal with it. Oh, he'll make them fucking pay. But first, Alex. “Where is he?”

“He said he’d leave Alex 'where it all started',” Carlos says, frowning.

“It’s a trap,” Jackson says quietly. “You know it’s a trap.” Michael knows: he doesn’t care. His expression must make it perfectly clear. “Right,” Jackson says, high shoulders straightening. “Where are we going?”

Where it all started. Where Michael’s family died. Where Alex’s family rounded up the survivors and spent the next seventy years torturing them for science.

“Fosters Ranch.”


	20. Chapter 20

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *hides*

Watching any kind of military operation when your only exposure to the military are the jarheads you occasionally get in fights with, the movies you watch on your sister’s Netflix account, and your paranoid SpecOps fiancé's multiple brushes with death, leaves you in a strange state of detached fascination. At least, that’s what Michale is finding.

There’s a complex hierarchical structure in Project Shepherd - as there is in all military installations - and while the wheels still turn and shit happens way faster than it probably should under similar circumstances, it’s obvious everyone is reeling from Alex’s kidnapping and Blackburn’s murder. Carlos is the NCO in charge of the tactical unit gearing up to head out with Michael to Foster’s Ranch, but there’s a clear power vacuum with the loss of both of the project’s ranking officers. No one quite knows where ultimate authority rests, and it’s rapidly going to start causing friction within the ranks.

It’s also got the potential to start a serious shitstorm for Michael and his family, especially if things continue the way they are and Jackson Manes digs his heels in any harder.

Christ, Alex is gonna shit a fucking brick when he gets back.

Michael can’t wait.

Soon. So fucking soon. An hour, tops, and he’s gonna have Alex back. He’s gonna have him back and he’s gonna drive him fucking crazy when he handcuffs them together for the rest of existence.

“Should we step in?” Michael is bouncing on the balls of his feet, one to the other and back again, fingers clenching in nervous anticipation as the black helicopter operation that his fiancé runs do their final checks.

Of course, there’s also a _literal_ black helicopter. Two. Michael, who ticked the interplanetary space travel box before he grew chest hair, has never been in a helicopter, or a plane.

The brush of Isobel’s arm against his draws his attention away from the group of men and women awaiting the green light, and towards the nearest bird. Next to it, Valenti is nose to nose with one of the soldiers - or rather nose to chin, in his case - and apparently grilling the fuck out of him.

“Sir, I have twelve years of experience with Pararescue, worked multiple combat missions and was personally selected by Major Manes to work on this project; I _will_ bring him back to you.” The soldier - airman, if he’s a PJ - has the word STITCH on his chest in lieu of his name. He’s patient, polite even, but everything about him from the haircut down suggests he’ll have no problem putting someone through a wall if pushed to it. 

“Nah,” Michael says, forcing himself to stop bouncing. “Maybe he’ll break Valenti’s face.”

“I thought you liked him now?” Michael grunts noncommittally, unable to bring himself under control until her fingers curl around his own and squeeze gently. “We’ll get him back,” she promises. “And then we’ll figure this…” she looks away, her chin trembling. When she’s able to meet his eye again, tears are overflowing. “I’m so sorry! I don’t know why Noah took him, I don’t understand any of this, but I’m _so sorry_ , Michael, I’m-“ she hiccups, clawing back the edge of a painful-looking sob, and so he enfolders her in his arms and tucks her against his chest.

“This isn’t your fault, Iz,” he assures her. “We’ll find him.” He echoes her promise and knows it means something different to her. He can’t blame her for that. Noah is her person, and he’s betrayed them. He knows how he felt just suspecting that Alex was working against them; he can’t imagine having those fears realized. He can’t imagine being so painfully blindsided by some trusted with something so precious.

So yeah, they’re gonna find Alex, they’re gonna get answers, and then they’re gonna make Noah and Jesse fucking pay.

 

* * *

 

 

They take two helicopters to their location, turning what would’ve been a thirty-minute trip into one that takes less than ten. It feels both too long and not nearly long enough, and he’s unprepared for the fractious way his heart pounds as they arrive at Foster’s Ranch.

There, standing alone in the middle of the rough foliage, is Alex. It seems too easy after the terror of having him snatched away, but he’s there, alive and looking relatively whole.

Michael hits the ground the second he knows he’ll survive the jump. Fuck gravity and fuck distance. He ignores the shouts of his name and the thunder of booted feet behind him; he ignores the fact that Alex’s team are all fitter and faster and demands reality move itself to accommodate his need to have Alex in his arms.

He skids in the dust, ignoring every instinct that experience has built. Startling Alex, coming upon him from behind, can land you with a swift punch to the throat. Michael doesn’t fucking care. He reaches Alex’s side, puts a hand on his arm, and spins them both around to face each other.

“Alex!”

There’s no blood, that’s the first thing his brain catalogs. No blood, no signs of mistreatment other than the wicked blue-black bruise that stretches across his forehead. Four neat butterfly bandages have been applied to the scabbed over split skin, dressing the injury Noah inflicted when he slammed Alex’s head into the desk. He’s had some kind of medical treatment, clearly, and his clothes have been swapped out from the NWUs he usually wears to the thick, pressed wool of his service dress blues. He fills the uniform out well, looking every bit as polished and presentable as he’d be expected to be at an official function. With the head injury and colorful rows of ribbons on his chest, he looks like he should be stepping up to receive another commendation or award.

For a moment, his expression matches. Michael’s used to watching him close himself off and lock his thoughts and emotions behind a tightly patrolled wall of experience. That flat, blank expression isn’t one he enjoys seeing, not when he knows the cost of it, but by this point, it’s not an unusual sight.

But the more he looks, the more feels out of place. The edges of each puzzle piece no longer match up, out by a fraction, distorted enough to render the whole picture incomprehensible.

Alex isn’t staring at a fixed point ahead of him; he’s not staring at anything at all. There’s no focus in his gaze, no consciousness.

His mouth, usually pulled into a firm line, is soft, lips barely parted.

“Alex?”

There’s no recognition in his eyes. No indication that he has any idea Michael is even standing there.

“Alex?”

“We need to get him out of the open,” Carlos says, trying and failing to draw Michael’s attention.

“Something’s not right,” Michael whispers. He’s always been able to see stars in Alex’s eyes, but the universe has been wiped blank: only an aching void stares back at him.

Fuck it. The unit surrounding them knows who he is. _What_ he is. Even if they don’t, Michael’s beyond the point of caring.

He swore he’d never do this without Alex’s consent, not again, but there’s no one home in his beloved eyes and Michael will throw himself on the pyre before he leaves Alex in that frightening blankness for a second longer. Who the fuck knows what Noah did to him? Who knows what Jesse did to him?

It’s been only a few days, but the damage done in that time could be catastrophic.

He’s injured and clearly in shock, and Michael knows exactly how to reach him, to tether him and make him feel safe.

He takes Alex’s hand, his fingers stiff and uncooperative in Michael’s, and holds it up to his chest.

“Back off,” he grunts at the gathered soldiers. Carlos nods sharply: they don’t step away, but they do turn their backs.

“Alex,” he bites back on the instinctive ‘ _sweetheart_ ’, knowing how much Alex has sacrificed to build himself up to where he is in the eyes of his team. “Can you hear me?”

Alex says nothing. He doesn’t blink. His hand isn’t heavy in Michael’s. If anything, it feels like Michael can let go and he’ll stay exactly as he is right now. A pretty, hollow mannequin.

The stars aren’t there anymore, but that just means Michael needs to reach out and find them. He closes his eyes, turns to that part of himself that shines the brightest when loving Alex, and casts that love out into the universe.

The last time he tumbled into Alex’s mind feels like a lifetime and a second ago, a cry of devotion and fear hurled out across the boundaries of time and space, the distance both unfathomable and immediate. Alex was there, no hesitation, no fear of Michael to be found; a beacon of light calling to him across oceans.

That light’s gone.

He throws himself further into the dark, knowing that somewhere Alex is waiting for him, no doubt frightened and alone. Michael has to find him. He has to find-

He hits his knees and pukes, the taste acidic and metallic in his mouth as a lazy trail of blood winds down from his nose across his lips. The world is darker, colder, and he has no idea how long he was looking or how far he went. Every part of him hurts, from his atoms to his soul, and _Alex isn’t there_.

Stitches the fancy fucking combat medic is overseeing the transfer of Alex onto a stretcher. He ignores Michael, the civilian who shouldn’t even be there - the alien who caused all this in the first place - all of his attention in its rightful place. Alex is the _only_ thing that matters.

It’s Carlos who helps Michael to his feet, one large, strong hand under his elbow, steadying him as he sways.

“I can’t find him,” Michael says brokenly.

Alex doesn’t resist as he’s maneuvered and gently strapped into place. He blinks slowly, but that’s the only outward sign that he’s alive. He lets them position him the way they want him, his limbs only moving when physically manipulated by someone else.

It’s Alex’s body and he still draws breath, but the supernova of his presence is gone, blinked out of existence. Where there was warmth and life there is now only cold emptiness.

“I can’t find him,” Michael sobs, his heart shattering as he tumbles headfirst into the singularity left in the stars where Alex once lived.

 


	21. Chapter 21

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This one is a little trippy! That said, the worst of the hurt for this story is officially over and we are heading towards Comfortsville. Like most journeys, it's not a direct path. Sometimes it might take longer than we want. But they're on their way, I promise. Thank you so much for sticking with the story this far!
> 
> Chapter warnings: discussion of mind control/psychic violation, mentions of past torture

“So on a scale of one to ten - with one being a friendly handjob in the back of your car and ten being like, a prolapsed asshole - how fucked are you?”

Alex leans back against his elbows, crosses his booted feet at the ankles, and turns his attention up to the sky: the stars over Iraq are pretty fucking spectacular.

Blackburn is a long, lanky line beside him, his head resting on one bent arm and his body the only source of heat for miles.

How fucked is he?

“Twelve person gangbang,” he says morosely. “With props.”

Blackburn’s whistle is long and dramatic. “Oh damn. So what are you gonna do?”

“Stay here?” Alex frowns. “Your company is way less fun than Michael’s, but you beat the alternative.”

Since the alternative, in this fucked up reality, is his father and his future-but-no-longer-brother-in-law the alien serial killer, it’s not like he has a huge amount of choice.

Following Noah’s first, brutal attack, Alex found himself surrounded - and sheltered - by the strength and warmth of Michael’s love for him. Now, facing an extended stay in enemy hands, he’s had no choice but to retreat even further. Conceding the precious grounds of Michael’s comforting presence hurts more than he can stand, but it’s necessary. He has a responsibility to keep his family safe.

So that puts him here, in Iraq of all places, the safety of Michael and his arms traded for a war zone and the first person in the world who knew all of his secrets.

“You can’t stay here forever,” Blackburn says easily. “And fuck you, I’m awesome company.”

Lazy bickering has always been easy for the two of them. Alex trusts Blackburn to have his back in the very worst circumstances; it’s relatively easy to trust him with everything else.

“If they come here, I need to be ready.”

Blackburn sits up, his dark eyes serious. “You know I’ve got your back, bro,” he says. “I’ll die before I let them get to you. But,” he hesitates, his shoulders slumping, “he steamrolled right through Guerin. What the fuck makes you think I’m gonna be any more use to you?” It’s true Todd has no powers. He can likely beat the shit out of Alex’s dad, but he’s got no real chance against Noah. That’s not why Alex needs him. Their eyes meet, and Blackburn deflates in defeat. “Oh.”

There’s no kind way to ask what Alex is asking, but he tries to be gentle anyway. “I hate that it’s gotta be you,” he whispers, “but there’s no one else I trust to do it.”

Blackburn turns away, his eyes bright. “You shouldn’t.”

“Because of Siberia?” Alex keeps his voice soft. Siberia was fucked, no two ways about it, but the scars Alex came out with are nothing on the ones Blackburn received. “You found another way in Siberia: you didn’t let me down.”

“I let them take you,” he says morosely. True. “And torture you.” Also true. There’s something kinda funny in the fact that the leg that got blown off was the same one they’d focused on when removing his toenails. And by funny he means that the nightmares he has now are really, really fucking disorientating.

“And then you saved my ass and carried me thirty kilometers - in a blizzard - back to safety. I think you’ve more than balanced the scoreboard there.”

The reminder of his heroic - and reckless - rescue doesn’t do anything to cheer him up. If anything, he only looks more downhearted.

“I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t kill you. I know it’s my job, but -“

Alex reaches out and grasps his shoulder. “It’s your job to stop the information in my head from falling into enemy hands.” And the secrets he has in there now are far, far more precious than cryptocurrency ciphers and the results of closed systems hacks into foreign intelligence.

“You didn’t break then,” Blackburn says hopefully. “Maybe you won’t now?”

The night sky slowly starts to brighten. A blood-red dawn is creeping over the horizon, a warning to all who can see it. The safety and sanctity of this night, this place, isn’t going to hold for much longer.

“Noah’s not going to waterboard me,” Alex says quietly. The trick to resisting torture isn’t to believe yourself strong enough to overcome any pain but to accept that you’re gonna break really, really fast. The art of it comes not in remaining undefeated, but in controlling the way you shatter. Manage that, and you can protect the things that matter most.

With Noah, he has no control. He has no techniques to guide him through the pain, no experience to hide behind. What Noah did to him was a violation of his very soul and the idea of going through that again…

He’s not been afraid of pain in a long, long time, but god, he’s fucking petrified of this. Something fundamental to his being has been ripped apart; he won’t survive it happening again. He’s not sure he’d want to. “I can’t…” his whole body shudders, the memory of invisible fingers digging into his brain, ripping him open and rummaging around inside. He only survived because of Michael, because Michael bought him time to hide.

He’s alone now, with only the phantom of Blackburn to protect him.

There’s only one way out. Only one way to ensure he goes to his grave with his secrets. If Noah finds him again, Alex will give him anything, everything, whatever it takes to avoid that foul presence of his mind inside Alex's own.

The sun has almost left the horizon now. It won’t be long.

“Please, Todd…”

He opens his eyes - hasn’t even realized he’s closed them - and finds himself at the center of a maelstrom. The barrel of a gun rests against his forehead and relief flows quickly.

“Thank you,” he whispers. He's gonna see Todd again real soon, he knows it in his bones. 

He just wishes he could see Michael one last time. To tell him how very much Alex loves him.

But this is all he can do. He can’t give Michael closure or peace, but he _can_ keep him safe.

He breathes out, hopefully for the last time, and waits.

A large hand falls on his shoulder, spinning him around, dragging him from his hiding place the second the bullet leaves the chamber.

“No!”

He screams. Kicks. _Claws_. Fights with everything he has and waits in terror for the soul shredding agony of Noah’s attack.

“ _Alex! Alex, it’s okay!_ ” That’s not Noah. It’s Max. The hand is his, and instead of pain comes the crackle and intensity of the air right before a storm. Any second the rain will come and wash away his agony.

“ _That’s it_ ,” Max encourages, “ _easy. Stay with me, please. Michael needs you_.”

Michael needs him dead. That’s the only certainty he has. If he’s dead, no one can use him against the people he loves. He can’t betray them. He can’t fail them.

The air crackles and burns. Blackburn is gone and they’re a long way from Iraq. Instead of the rising sun, he finds himself in a world of blinding white brilliance. It's a pure infinite white existence, one used so often to depict Heaven.

It feels like Hell.

He can’t see anything or anyone, not with the way the world burns from the inside out, but he can hear them. Max, yes, but Kyle too. And Michael. Beloved Michael, whose voice is wet with tears and who has no idea how badly Alex has let him down.

“ _You said he was responding!”_ Michael snarls thickly. “ _You said-“_

“ _I said we had a chance,_ ” Kyle cuts him off. “ _The scans were promising, but we knew it was a long shot.”_

“ _Michael_ -“ That’s Max, trying - struggling - to sound like the rock Michael needs.

“ _You said you could heal him!_ ”

“ _I did! I-_ “

“ _We’ll do more tests,_ ” Kyle says gently. “ _This is the second traumatic brain injury Alex has had in six months. Not including the sheer number of times he’s been punched in the face between them_ _. That alone can do irrevocable damage and-_ “

“ _But Max healed that-_ “ Michael’s getting angrier, defending into a spiral of fear and rage that’s hard to pul him back from. Alex wants to hold him and reassure him, wants to comfort him - could, _would_ comfort him - if only he can find a way back to the world beyond this brightness.

“ _He did_ ,” Kyle agrees, “ _But the human mind is not meant to be a battleground between warring aliens. And we have no idea what damage Noah did to him in the time he was being held. We know he controlled him, used his body to break Jesse Manes out of prison, but beyond that?_ ”

“ _I can try again, Michael. We both can. It might just take some time._ ”

Alex is pretty sure that time is something they don’t have much of.

Noah and his father are out there somewhere, and his worst fears have been realized. They used him to do their dirty work and now… now it might be too late to stop them.

 


	22. Chapter 22

 

Michael drags the razor carefully down the curve of Alex’s cheek. He’s always had the softest skin, as smooth and as cool as silk. Each precise drag of metal is followed through by a brush of Michael’s fingers. He takes his time to ensure there isn’t even the slightest nick or cut; to make sure he does the job to the same exacting standards Alex has for himself. Even when neck-deep in conspiracies and murder attempts, Alex has always been meticulous about personal hygiene.

Michael shaves him every morning and bathes him every night. He likes to pretend the look in Alex’s eye when he does so is approval, not emptiness.

It’s been nearly two weeks. Two weeks and not a word from Noah or Jesse Manes. Two weeks and they’re no closer to drawing Alex back to them than they were after that first day.

He’s awake and aware, although they’re not sure to what degree. He’ll sit up when Michael tells him to, drink if a straw is put between his lips, swallow if food is put in his mouth. Mostly, he stares at his lap or a spot on the wall, but sometimes he’ll track Michael’s movement across the room. He doesn’t talk, but he mumbles in his sleep. He’s in there, somewhere. He’ll come back.

In the meantime, Michael’s entire existence runs on a schedule. Every single minute of his day is planned, structured to provide Alex with stability and reassurance. He makes sure Alex wakes at the same time every day; eats at the same time; uses the bathroom at the same time; sleeps at the same time. Valenti has him on a carefully controlled diet and monitors everything from his fluid intake to his brainwaves. Michael dresses him, brushes his teeth, carries him when he’s not in a wheelchair. And he talks to him. All fucking day and well into the night.

“Carlos set fire to your brother’s pants last night,” he says, cleaning away the last traces of shaving cream. “While he was wearing them. Didn’t know humans could reach that high a pitch. He’s getting antsy though - Carlos, not Flint: don’t know what Nichols is gonna do about it, but he’s gonna have to do something. He left a grenade in the coffee machine. Actually _in_ the jug. Who does that?”

The military types Michael knows - Alex and especially his family included - have always given him the impression of brutal, hard-nosed seriousness. Discipline. Regimented rigidity. Bullshit. Project Shepherd, with the specter of Blackburn’s ghost and Alex’s injury, and with the likes of Jackson and Flint Manes stirring the fucking pot, has been painfully somber and serious, right up until the arrival of Colonel - now Brigadier General - Nichols earlier that week. Alex’s men, under the leadership of Carlos, seem to be fighting back against the oppressive weight of the Manes shadow with the combined maturity of a kindergarten class.

Short of a few minor explosions, there’s been nothing overtly obvious, but Jackson has had his coffee spiked with laxatives so often in the last few days he’s started carrying a hipflask.

Alex’d be proud of them, Michael thinks.

He’d chew them all new assholes, but then he’d probably have his brother’s car towed.

“They all need to get really fucked, you know?” Michael puts away the razor and folds the small washcloth onto the edge of the counter. Major shock, but the bunkhouses built to accommodate soldiers working for shady covert intelligence operations aren’t exactly accessible, and there’s no room for the chair in the small bathroom. Alex is carefully propped on the toilet seat, while Michael has one foot inside the shower. There’s less chance for Alex to fall, but it’s also a lot harder for Michael to help him in and out.

And this is the ‘luxury’ room. It has a double bed and an ensuite. Which is more than you can say for the rooms the rest of them have been assigned. Izzy and Liz are sharing the one other suite; Max and Valenti are in the bunkhouse with ten other dudes. Here’s where Alex’s influence on the program is most keenly felt: no one has tried to murder Max in his sleep. Michael’s one hundred percent sure that if Jesse were still in charge, they’d’ve all been shot in the back of the head long before now.

It’s remarkable, really. No one has given them any shit. The one and only guy to raise any objections to their continued stay - outside of a cell - got his two front teeth knocked out by Carlos, so whether they’re genuinely cool with aliens in their midst, or just in favor of keeping their teeth, Michael’s not sure. He doesn’t give a fuck either way. Right now, he needs their resources, and Alex needs the kind of care and treatment not available to him in a civilian hospital.

Dressing Alex before himself, Michael checks the time. Right on schedule.

“Valenti’s gonna take you for some more tests this morning,” Michael tells him. He can’t try and force eye contact now Alex is comfortably settled into the wheelchair, but he can keep up the reassurance of his chatter. “Liz’s is on the verge of a breakthrough with her anti-alien-superpower-serum… and if you’d asked me a year ago if I’d be helping a biomedical engineer manufacture a drug to kill aliens while using the resources of a multibillion-dollar alien-hunting operation…. Christ, our lives are weird.”

The space between his words, space he still desperately hopes will be filled with Alex’s wicked, dry sense of humor, remains empty. Each time is a new wound, a new hurt, and after two weeks Michael’s heart has been pulverized beyond recognition. He’s a raw, bleeding wound: cauterization isn’t an option.

He wants to hear Alex’s voice so badly it’s a physical ache. He needs the reassurance of his presence, so sure and stable. He needs the soft sleepiness of his morning whispers, breath warm against Michael’s throat as he’d snuggle in close and declare sweetly sincere ‘I love yous’ to the early morning world.

If Alex were here, he’d know what to do. He’d know how to find Noah and his father, he’d know how to navigate his brothers, how to soothe Carlos’s grief and provide stability for his men. He’d be able to comfort Isobel and assure Max. He’d have the words, almost by magic, to bring confidence and certainty to all of them.

But he _is_ here, and it feels wrong to think of him as being elsewhere, even when he so clearly is.

The mess is quiet - full, but quiet. The men and women eating all acknowledge them as they pass, respectful, but with no real idea how to behave around someone who is usually so very, very in control him himself and the world around him. Michael doesn’t really know, either.

He wants to be back home. In the cabin. In the one place he feels he belongs.

But they’re safer here. Alex is safer here. That’s worth any sacrifice.

After breakfast, Michael takes him to medical and resists the urge to run over Valenti’s toes with the wheel of the chair. Alex would laugh if he did - scold him, but laugh - and he can’t face a world where that laugh no longer exists.

“You squared it? For how long?” Valenti looks like shit, even from the side. Nichols, as brusque and stone-faced as ever, doesn’t seem so old when next to the doctor’s exhausted, sunken face.

“Long as you need. Your supervisor ‘couldn’t be happier to accommodate such an important program'.”

Valenti sighs and rubs a hand over his face. “I’m gonna get so much shit when I go back, aren’t I?”

Nichols claps a hand on his shoulder. “Great big steaming piles of it.”

Both of them brighten when they see Alex and Michael - or Alex at least, Michael is under no illusion that either of them gives a fuck about him.

Nichols drops down onto his hunches in order to attempt eye contact with Alex. “How’re you feeling, son?” he asks. His tone is soft and gentle; kinder, no doubt, than Alex has never heard from his actual father.

“We had a good night,” Michael waits until the silence is painful before he answers, “no nightmares.” Alex is sleeping deeply these days. One blessing he’ll take with open arms.

Nichols squeezes Alex’s knee. “That’s good. That’s real good. I’m gonna stop Carlos from shoving a flash-bang up your brother’s ass, but I’ll swing by later and hang out then, okay?”

Alex doesn’t answer. Alex doesn’t seem to care who watches him.

It’ll be Isobel, once he’s done with Kyle; she takes the mid-morning duty. They all meet up and swap notes over lunch, then it's either Carlos or Max who keep him company until Michael leaves Liz in the lab. From then on, he doesn’t leave Alex’s side until the following morning.

Nichols pats Michael on the arm as he passes. Michael is glad he’s here - glad there is some kind of adult-ier adult on the scene who can keep Alex’s brothers in check while Alex is out of commission. He already feels like he’s fighting too many battles on too many fronts and the looming threat of Noah is growing ever more frightening.

“I got him,” Valenti says, meeting Michael’s expression with a look of equal exhaustion. “Say hi to Liz for me.”

Michael doesn’t respond, focusing instead on crouching by the side of Alex’s chair. “I’ll see you soon,” he promises. Alex’s hand is too cold when Michael raises it to his lips and kisses his knuckles. Alex says nothing, of course.

Another kiss to his cheek, and then the crown of his head, before he scrapes the last of his hope off the floor of his heart and fixes Valenti with a pleading look that is entirely free of shame or dignity.

“Soon,” Valenti promises. “He’ll be despairing the state of your hair in no time, I promise.”

Michael swallows back a sob and hides it in a nod.

He kisses Alex’s forehead again, and all but sprints from medical towards the labs. They’re far enough apart for him to scrub the tears from his eyes before he gets there.

He’ll do whatever Alex needs, be whatever he needs, for however long he needs it.

But - and this is what maybe hurts the most - no matter how tightly Michael holds him at night, he felt closer to him when Alex was on the other side of the world.

Alex has come back from war three times now, and a part of him is terrified that that luck has run out.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter warnings: handwavy medical science!


	23. Chapter 23

Alex _is_ getting better. It’s a slow process, one underlined by microexpressions and small, involuntary movements. Michael catalogs each and everyone one.

So does Valenti. In careful detail and impossibly untidy handwriting. He writes them in Alex’s notes: Michael writes them on his heart.

He’s given a twitch that evening, after rinsing Alex’s toothbrush and dropping it into the holder next to his own. The colorful plastic is the only bright spot in this otherwise soulless suite.

“Bed,” he says, dropping a kiss to Alex’s forehead before helping him back into the bedroom. “You’d had a long day.”

Alex makes no protest, as pliant and biddable as ever under Michael’s hands.

Now clean and dressed in fresh pajamas, his eyelids drooping, he settles the moment Michael gently pushes him down against the pillow.

In the time it takes for Michael to finish getting himself ready, his breathing has evened out into sleep. He doesn’t stir when Michael pulls him into his arms and holds him close.

A final kiss behind his ear, and Michael tries his best to get some rest of his own.

He manages an hour? Maybe more, maybe less.

Movement in his arms jerks Michael awake and he’s in no way prepared to counter the speed and fluidity in which Alex rolls him over and pins him down. A hand clamps firmly over his mouth as Alex raises a finger to his lips, gesturing for silence.

His heart pounding violently in his chest, Michael is too confused to do anything but nod. Gingerly, Alex moves his hand away and braces it on the mattress by Michael’s head instead.

“Alex?” Michael whispers, caught on the knife’s edge of desperate hopefulness.

Alex shakes his head. “Sorry.”

Michael knows Alex in his bones, has been inside his head and his heart and his soul. And still, he’d struggle to look at him now and tell that there is anything wrong. No. No, that’s not right. He can see something is wrong by the lack of warmth in Alex’s eyes. Unfortunately, it’s a look he wears far too often when work and aliens are the topics of his focus.

“ _Noah_.” Michael immediately starts to struggle, only to find himself pressed down by an invisible, almost smothering weight. It’s hard not to panic, being so completely trapped, and his instincts war with each other. Alex is safe, Noah is not: his head and his heart don’t know where to draw that line.

“I need to talk to you,” Alex says. _Noah says._

Michael snarls. “If you fucking hurt him I’ll-“

“You’re as responsible for this as I am,” Noah snaps. “If you’d’ve let me have him, I wouldn’t have hurt him.”

“Bullshit.”

Noah cocks Alex’s head to one side and Michael wants to scream. “I kinda like Alex. More than I like the rest of his family.”

Noah shouldn’t even know Alex’s family outside social passing. He’s supposed to be a nice, safe, _normal_ human. His sister’s husband.

“Then why’d you use Alex to break his father out of prison?” he demands.

If - when, _when_ \- Alex comes back to himself, his unwitting role in his father’s escape will haunt him. Michael intends to be sure that Jesse Manes is long dead by the time they cross that bridge.

“There’s a lot you don’t understand,” Noah says hastily, throwing a glance over his shoulder at the bedroom door before refocusing on Michael. “A lot that I kept from you, and I will explain. But you need to understand that I am not your enemy, Michael.”

“You used my sister to murder someone.” Lots of someones, he thinks. “You lied to her, manipulated her-“

Alex’s head shakes rapidly. “I never set out to hurt Isobel. I never planned on hurting any of you.”

Michael makes another attempt to break free of Noah’s hold. “Tell that to the people you murdered! Tell that to Alex!”

Anger filters across Alex’s expression. It’s an ugly look, unnatural on a face that is usually so kind. “I didn’t come here to argue with you, Michael. I came to warn you: they’re coming. The beacon’s been lit and there is not much time.” He sounds scared. It's Alex's voice and that fear makes his spine curl in agony. 

“What beacon? Who’s coming?” He’s getting sick and fucking tired of everyone knowing more than he does, of constantly being on the back foot. Even Alex does it, shutting him out of important decisions on the misguided guise of protecting him. It’s too much.

“You need to get to Caulfield,” Noah says urgently. Michael’s brow furrows: he knows that name: Jackson Manes claims that there are eighty aliens being held there. When Alex is healed, it’s his first fucking stop. “There’s a woman there, Mara. She can help Alex. She can help you. Tell her I’m sorry. Tell her that the Collective is coming.”

“What the fuck is the Collective?”

Noah ignores him. “You can’t waste time. I’ll delay him as much as I can, but he’s a lot stronger than I am.”

“Who?” Michael demands. “Jesse Manes?”

“He’s dangerous.”

“No shit!”

“The first chance you get, kill him. Kill him and burn his body.”

You’ll get no complaints there from Michael. He wants to see the light fade in the bastard’s eyes, but he can’t understand why Noah doesn’t just kill him himself. Unless he needs Manes for something? Is that why they let Alex go? 

“I don’t-“

Alex looks over his shoulder again. “Tell Liz I would’ve died before hurting Rosa,” Noah says.

And just like that, he’s gone. The oppressive weight pinning Michael down vanishes: Alex slumps against him, eyes rolling back and blood trickling lazily from his nose.

 

* * *

 

 

“VALENTI!”

There are other medics on-site, but it’s Kyle Michael screams for as he kicks the double doors into medical open with his mind. He carries Alex in his arms, his weight an afterthought, walled up behind bricks hardened from fear and panic.

It’s late, but still an hour you can consider night, not morning, and by some miracle Kyle is still there, lab coat wrinkled and a dozen of Alex’s scans spread out on the desk in front of him. He jumps to his feet in a flash, fatigue vanishing behind a rush of adrenaline and professional experience.

“Put him on the bed,” he directs, smacking an alarm with his elbow as he circles around to check Alex’s vitals. Within seconds, the room is full of people who all jump to the tune Kyle is barking while Michael hovers, useless as ever, and tries not to cry.

The doors swing open again as Isobel dashes in and wraps her arms around him. “I felt you. What happened? Are you okay?”

_Your insane serial killer husband just possessed my fiancé again so he could deliver the most cryptic as fuck messages._

Yeah. No. Can’t say that. He settles instead for, “Noah,” and her expression says everything. Tucking her in close enough to rest their heads together, he tries to find strength in being someone she can lean on. In truth, his foundations are all but shot. He’s built his entire world on the stability of Alex and without him, he’s floundering.

Strong arms suddenly circle around them both. As one, Michael and Isobel lean into their brother. “I’ve got you,” he promises, resting a palm on the back of each of their necks.

“He’s okay,” Liz’s gentle voice slowly penetrates Michael’s fog of fear. “Look, Mikey… he’s okay.”

Almost too afraid to trust her, it takes Michael agonizing minutes to turn his face from the shelter of his siblings and look upon the bed.

The crowd has thinned. Valenti is scribbling something on the thick compilation of notes he has.

And Alex’s eyes are open.

He slips from Max and Isobel’s embrace, his body moving with the atoms of the universe in order to be at Alex’s side just a fraction of a second sooner.

The blood has been cleared away, but Michael rubs his thumb across Alex’s top lip, the sight of it still clear in his memory. He takes Alex’s hand and raises it to his lips.

“Hey, Darlin’.”

Alex doesn’t return his smile, not in any real way. His expression is still blank, still lifeless, but his lips part under Michael’s thumb and the ghost of a whisper brushes across his skin.

“ _Michael_.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello from New York! My new puppy Pica sends very fluffy nose boops! <3


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